Implied Warranties in Western Australian Home Building Contracts

What it is

Western Australia is the outlier on statutory warranties. Every other Australian state has a statutory list of warranties written into the residential building work Act, with prescribed durations. New South Wales has seven, Victoria six, Queensland seven, South Australia six, Tasmania a full set in the 2016 Act, ACT five, Northern Territory six. Western Australia has none.

What it has is a narrower set of implied contract terms under the Home Building Contracts Act 1991 (WA), plus the Australian Consumer Law consumer guarantees running in parallel, plus a workmanship complaint pathway through the Building Services (Complaint Resolution and Administration) Act 2011 (WA).

Section 11: make-good on a 4 month clock

Section 11(1) of the HBCA is the closest thing Western Australia has to a statutory workmanship warranty. It implies into every home building work contract a term that the builder is liable to make good, at the builder's cost, any defect in the home building work of which the builder is notified in writing within the period of 4 months commencing on the day of practical completion.

Section 11(1) defines a defect as either a failure to perform the home building work in a proper and workmanlike manner and in accordance with the contract, or a failure to supply materials of merchantable quality and reasonably fit for the purpose for which the owner required the home building work to be performed.

Section 11(2) preserves the contract's freedom to specify a longer period than 4 months, and most industry templates and TradeForm WA templates extend to 6 or 12 months on the face of the contract.

Section 9: permits and water approvals

Section 9 of the HBCA implies two related conditions into every contract. The builder must obtain a building permit within 45 working days of the contract, or a longer period if the contract fixes one. The builder must also obtain the necessary water service provider approvals within the same period. Failure to obtain a permit or approval within the period gives the owner a termination right under section 19.

That is not a warranty in the usual sense, but it operates the same way, silently reading a duty into the contract and giving the owner a remedy for breach.

What the HBCA does not do

The HBCA does not create a general workmanship warranty running for years after completion. It does not distinguish major from non-structural defects with different durations. It does not extend the make-good obligation to successors in title as a matter of statute. All of that has to be built into the contract.

Compare New South Wales, where section 18D of the Home Building Act 1989 (NSW) passes the section 18B warranties to successors in title. Compare Victoria, where section 9 of the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 (Vic) does the same. Compare South Australia's section 32 of the Building Work Contractors Act 1995 (SA), which fixes a strict 5 year limitation period from completion. Western Australia leaves all of it to the contract.

The complaint pathway does the heavy lifting

Because the statutory warranty layer is thin, Western Australian owners rely on the Building Services (Complaint Resolution and Administration) Act 2011 (WA) for workmanship complaints. A building remedy order complaint must be lodged within 6 years of the practical completion of the building work. The Building Commissioner may make orders up to $100,000 and the State Administrative Tribunal may make orders up to $500,000.

Home Building Contracts Act contract complaints (breach of an HBCA-implied term, non-compliance with sections 4 or 5) sit under a shorter 3 year window from completion under the same Act. So a defect that breaches both the contract and the section 11 make-good obligation can be argued through the workmanship route (6 years) or the contract route (3 years), depending on the framing.

Australian Consumer Law consumer guarantees

The consumer guarantees in the Australian Consumer Law apply to a residential building contract in parallel with the HBCA. The service guarantees under sections 60 to 62 (due care and skill, fit for purpose, reasonable time) run for a period a court considers reasonable in the circumstances. The goods guarantees under sections 54 to 59 attach to materials supplied.

Those guarantees cannot be excluded, restricted or modified by contract for a domestic building consumer, which puts a floor under any Western Australian contract that tries to define the section 11 make-good tightly.

What TradeForm WA templates carry voluntarily

Because the HBCA carries such a thin statutory list, TradeForm WA templates carry the full TradeForm baseline as contract terms: workmanship warranty periods that match industry norms elsewhere, materials warranties, permit and BCA compliance, fitness for purpose and a defects liability regime. Each is flagged as a contract-based protection rather than a statutory one, and each is written to run to successors in title.

The 2026 review of Western Australia's home building contract laws (consultation closed 24 June 2026, recommendations due September 2026) has a statutory warranty list on the table for reform. TradeForm WA templates should be reviewed when the recommendations are released.