What home construction covers
“Home construction” is the process of building a home, and in practice it arrives in four shapes. A new home on vacant land. A knockdown rebuild, where an existing house is demolished and replaced. A renovation or extension of a house that stays standing. And a dual occupancy, two dwellings on one lot. Each has its own traps, and this network gives each its own reference: building on the Illawarra Escarpment and dual occupancy so far, with renovation and knockdown rebuilds to follow.
What they share is the order the work happens in and the NSW rules around it. That is what this page covers. I have built homes in the Illawarra for more than 25 years, and most of the expensive problems I see come from doing one of these steps out of order.
The seven stages, in the order they happen
- Assess the site. Slope, access, drainage, zoning, bushfire mapping, services. On a flat suburban block this takes an afternoon. On a steep or coastal one it decides where the house can go and a large share of what it costs.
- Design to the site. Drawings that answer what the site assessment found, not a plan chosen first and forced onto the land.
- Get approval. A development application through council, or a complying development certificate where the land and design qualify.
- Sign the contract. A written contract that meets the Home Building Act, with the price, the progress payments and the insurance certificate in place.
- Build, with inspections. A principal certifier carries out mandatory inspections as the work goes.
- Occupation certificate. Issued by the certifier when the final inspection shows the requirements are met.
- Handover and warranties. The statutory warranties run from completion: six years for major defects, two years for everything else.
The step people skip
Stage one. It is the cheapest stage and the one that saves the most money, because every later stage inherits its answers. I do every site assessment myself for that reason.
Approval: development application or complying development
NSW has two main routes to approval for a new house. The NSW Government describes complying development as “a combined planning and construction approval for straightforward development that can be determined through a fast-track assessment by a council or an accredited certifier.” The development has to meet every standard in the relevant code, and there is no merit assessment.
A development application is assessed on its merits by council, and it is the route for anything the codes do not cover. The difference in time is real:
| Pathway | Published timing |
|---|---|
| Complying development certificate | As little as 20 days |
| Complying development, NSW Housing Pattern Book | 10 days |
| Development application | 70 days on average |
Which route applies is a property of the land as much as the house. Steep land, bushfire-affected land and environmentally sensitive land often take a block out of the codes, which is why so much Illawarra work goes through a development application with consultant reports attached. The escarpment guide works through those triggers for one of the hardest landscapes in the region.
BASIX and the 7-star standard
A new home in NSW needs a BASIX certificate, lodged with the approval. Since 1 October 2023 the thermal performance standard for new homes has been 7 stars on the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme, up from an average of 5.5 to 6 stars. The exceptions are homes in climate zones 9, 10 and 11 in north-eastern NSW and apartment buildings up to five storeys, so the 7-star standard applies to houses in the Illawarra. Treat that as a design input from the start: it shapes glazing, insulation, shading and orientation, and changing those after approval costs time.
Licences: check before you sign
In NSW a contractor licence is required to carry out, advertise or contract for residential building work valued at more than $5,000 in labour and materials, including GST. That applies to subcontractors on the job as well.
Licences are public. Look the builder up on the NSW licence register before you sign anything, and check that the name on the licence is the name on the contract. As an example, the register entry for my own Qualified Supervisor Certificate, 69005S, is public on the NSW register, and CKS Projects Aust Pty Ltd holds contractor licence 258735C.
The contract: what NSW requires
The Home Building Act sets the rules, and they scale with the value of the job:
| Rule | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Small jobs | Work worth $5,000 to $20,000 needs a small jobs contract. |
| Large jobs | Work worth more than $20,000 needs a full home building contract: signed and dated, with the contractor's licence details, a description of the work, plans and specifications attached, the Home Building Act warranties and a prominent contract price. |
| Deposit | No more than 10 percent. |
| Cooling-off | Five clear business days after you are given a copy of a contract over $20,000. |
| Progress payments | Contracts over $20,000 must have a progress payment schedule, and payments must match the work carried out. |
| Insurance | Over $20,000, the contractor must give you a certificate of cover under the Home Building Compensation Scheme, formerly called home warranty insurance. |
My advice goes one step further than the law: do not pay anything, including the deposit, until you hold the insurance certificate and have checked the licence yourself. The NSW Government publishes free standard home building contracts if you want a benchmark to compare a builder's contract against.
Inspections and the occupation certificate
Once work starts, a principal certifier carries out mandatory inspections during construction and can ask for documents showing the work matches the approval. If everything is met at the final inspection, the certifier issues the occupation certificate. You need an occupation certificate to use or live in a new building, so it is the real finish line, not the last trade leaving site.
Warranties after handover
The Home Building Act 1989 gives owners statutory warranties, starting with the requirement that work is performed with due care and skill, and a large-job contract has to set them out. For contracts signed on or after 1 February 2012 they run for six years for major defects and two years for all other defects, from the date the work was completed. A major defect is one in a major element of the building caused by defective design, workmanship or materials, or a failure to meet the structural performance requirements of the National Construction Code.
What building in the Illawarra adds
The rules above apply across NSW. What the Illawarra adds is ground. Between the escarpment and the sea, a large share of residential land is sloping, coastal or bushfire-affected, and sometimes all three. That shifts weight to the first stage: geotechnical investigation, stormwater, access for trucks and pumps, and the Bushfire Attack Level all have to be known before design, because each one changes the house and the price.
That is the reason this network exists as separate references rather than one long page. The escarpment guide covers the geology, landslip, council controls and bushfire rules for building on the Illawarra Escarpment, with four built examples from Wombarra, Austinmer and Coledale.
- Stages of a new home build, from slab to handover: what happens on site, and the inspection at each stage.
- Choosing a builder: licence and insurance checks: the registers and the certificate to check before you sign or pay.
- What is a provisional sum?: PC items and provisional sums, and why they push budgets over.
- Custom home or project home: the real difference when building in Wollongong.
Sources
Checked on 28 September 2026.
- NSW Government, Contracts for residential building work: small and large job thresholds, contract contents, 10 percent deposit, five-business-day cooling-off, progress payments, warranty periods.
- NSW Government, Guide to providing home building contracts: the Home Building Compensation Scheme certificate for contracts over $20,000.
- NSW Government, General building work: contractor licence required above $5,000 in labour and materials, including GST.
- NSW Department of Planning, Complying development: definition and published approval times.
- NSW Planning Portal, Increase to BASIX standards: 7-star thermal performance from 1 October 2023.
- NSW Government, What certifiers do: mandatory inspections and the occupation certificate.
- NSW Government, Resolving building disputes: statutory warranty periods and the definition of a major defect.
- NSW Planning Portal, BASIX: a BASIX certificate for a new home.
General information from a builder, not legal, planning or financial advice. Rules change; confirm the current position with NSW Fair Trading, your council or your own advisers before relying on it.