Absolutely ! All the defects we report are backed up with photographic evidence and references to the particular Australian Standard that has been breached. The builder is required to rectify ALL defects found on our reports.

We are unable to offer any advice in relation to progress payments. Please seek advice from your chosen legal practitioner. It is essential to ensure you are not in breach of your contract. We do however recommend that you obtain a building inspection to ensure the works adhere to relevant standards before you make payment.

Provided that you hold a Domestic Building Contract with your builder, the builder cannot deny you access to your property to have an independent inspection conducted.

Please note that if you give the builder more than two working days’ notice of your requirement to enter the home, the builder MUST open the dwelling under the "Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995", part 2 section 19 (Victoria).

You can lodge a complaint with the DBDRV if they refuse. In other words, if the builder has been notified, then he or she must open the dwelling. 

Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995Act No. 91/1995Part 2—Provisions that Apply to all Domestic Building Contracts Access to building site

(1) A builder must permit the building owner (or a person authorised by the building owner) to have reasonable access to the building site and to view any part of the building works.

Penalty: 20 penalty units. 

We recommend that all stages are carried out to ensure peace of mind throughout your build. Remember, the building surveyor will not spend near as much time as one of our inspectors will on site. It is important to have an inspector inspect each stage of construction thoroughly.

Reports are guaranteed on the same day of the inspection.

You are more than welcome to attend any inspection conducted by DC Building Inspectors, however for the Pre Pour inspection, you will not be able to access the slab preparations due to health and safety requirements. We do require you to notify us if you are attending as your consultant will inform you if there are any time changes due to cancellations or an unavoidable delay, however unlikely.

We do not require anyone to meet us onsite for any stage inspections, however we will require access inside the dwelling once the dwelling is locked. This is generally once the plaster has gone up and you are nearing your Fixing stages. Some builders will meet our consultants onsite to open the dwelling and then leave, or some builders will leave a door unlocked for our consultant to gain access. Please note, our consultants are not issued with a set of builder’s keys. At a Site Supervisor’s discretion, our consultants may periodically be provided with a set of builder’s keys for their own use and access will need to be provided through your communication with your builder only.

If the defects are non-compliant under the Building Act, Building Regulations, National Construction Code, the relevant Australian Standards, Guidelines and Tolerances then we recommend that you contact your builder to discuss your concerns.

You will be able to request to have your concerns escalated to the Construction Manager or the Building Manager. If you are unhappy with the response from your builder and need more information on actions you can take, we would recommend that you speak with Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria. They can be contacted via their website at www.dbdrv.vic.gov.au

Unfortunately, we are unable to comment on photographs that have not be taken by one of our consultants. Please be mindful that these photos are for your records only and we are unable to comment on any photos that are provided to you by the builder with a level of complete certainty.

At any stage of your build we have no guarantee that a photo provided relates directly to your build or the actual defect. To be fully confident all defects identified within our reports are correctly rectified we require adequate visual assessment. With the short time frames with slab pre pour inspection we normally don't have a chance to reinspect before the slab concrete is poured. We can however arrange a time for one of our consultants to come out to your property and conduct a re-inspection to check that all items of concern have been rectified from our previous report.