QBCC Licences and Home Warranty Insurance

This page is written to help you check anybody, including us. Bathroom renovation is one of the trades where the gap between a good operator and a bad one is largely invisible until it is expensive, and the licensing system is the main tool a homeowner has for telling them apart before handing over money.

Licensing rules and thresholds are set by legislation and change from time to time, so confirm the current position with the regulator rather than relying on any contractor’s summary, including this one.

Why the licence matters more here than in other trades

Building work in Queensland above a statutory value threshold must be carried out by an appropriately licensed contractor. Bathroom renovation ordinarily sits above it, which means it is licensable building work rather than general handyman work.

Licences are also issued by class. A licence is not a general permission to build anything; it authorises particular types of work. Waterproofing is its own class, and so are the plumbing components. A contractor may hold a perfectly valid licence that does not cover the specific work they are proposing to do for you, which is a distinction worth understanding before you assume a licence number settles the question.

Home warranty insurance

Queensland operates a statutory home warranty scheme. For residential building work above a value threshold, the contractor is required to take out cover and pay the premium before starting, and the premium is ordinarily passed on within the contract price.

What it is for is the scenario nobody plans for: the contractor does not finish, or defective work emerges and the contractor cannot or will not rectify it. It provides a route to having the work completed or corrected that does not depend on the original builder still being in business.

The practical signal for a homeowner is simple. On a job above the threshold, you should be able to confirm the cover exists. If a contractor is reluctant to discuss it, or suggests that keeping the job in cash avoids the need for it, they are proposing that you carry a risk the law intends them to carry.

How to check, in about two minutes

The regulator publishes an online licence search. You can look up a contractor by name, by company name or by licence number.

What to look at when you do: whether the licence is current rather than expired or suspended, what classes it covers and whether they match the work being quoted, whether the name on the licence matches the entity on your quote and contract, and whether any disciplinary or insurance claim history is recorded.

That last point deserves a sentence. A single historical entry against a long-running builder is not necessarily meaningful. A pattern is.

The entity on the paperwork

Check that the business name on your quote, the name on the contract, the name on the licence and the name on the bank details you are asked to pay into are the same entity. Where they differ, ask why before paying anything.

Some sensible defaults

Get the quote in writing with a scope, not a single figure. Do not pay a large deposit up front; statutory limits apply to deposits on residential building contracts. Be wary of a price that is dramatically below the others, since the gap has to come out of something, and the parts of a bathroom that are cheapest to skip are the parts you cannot see. Ask who is actually doing the waterproofing and what they are licensed to do.

None of this is adversarial. Any contractor who is comfortable with their own paperwork will answer all of it without hesitating.

When you ask us, you will get the same. See bathroom waterproofing for the part of the job the licensing question matters most for, or call 0468 047 067.