Home Warranty Inspections
If you had a property built or renovated recently, you may be covered by Home Warranty Insurance or a defect warranty in your contract.
Home warranty insurance is a scheme that is managed by the Queensland Building & Construction Commission (QBCC).
What is Home Warranty Insurance?
If the building work, including materials and labour, is valued at over $3300, the contractor is required to pay an insurance premium to QBCC to insure the construction. It is important that you have a contract with your builder and that this premium is paid by them before work starts. It is normally quoted into the job and included in the contract.
Home warranty insurance can protect you from things like –
- a licensed contractor does not complete the contracted residential construction work and you have terminated the contract
- a licensed contractor fails to rectify defective work
- the building suffers from subsidence or settlement
The work is covered for structural defects for 6 years and 6 months generally from the date the premium was paid. You may also be covered for up to 12 months after completion on non-structural defects by the builder as part of your contract. Please refer to the QBCC website for more information on warranties.
What Do We Check?
Before both of these deadlines arrive, it is worth checking your home to make sure there are no defects that have developed. A well built home should last for many years, and if there are any problems not found early on, they could get costly to repair in the years ahead. This way you can hopefully have any issues rectified by the builder or if it comes to it, the QBCC. We check your property for the following –
- any structural defects or damage
- conditions conducive to structural damage such as defective plumbing, roof leaks, corrosion, tree roots, subsidence, etc.
- any serious safety hazards
- major defects in secondary elements and finishing elements
- minor defects and any maintenance issues
Most of the time we have the report to you the same day and you will get a general summary of our findings with an annexure of photos. We recommend you attend the inspection, that way we can discuss with you any defects found.
We have the right equipment to uncover building damage.
At Clearcut Building Inspections, we’re backed up with 30 years of experience in the construction industry. However, we have a suite of tools that help us discover and diagnose damage and defects in the buildings we inspect. If we notice something isn’t quite right in our initial visual home warranty inspection, we’ll test it using this equipment, at no additional cost to you.
Our team is equipped with modern thermal imaging cameras, moisture meters and other technology to thoroughly inspect the building.