How to Hire a Tradesperson in Australia

Write down the job in plain terms before you make contact: what is being installed, replaced or repaired, roughly how big it is, and when you need it done. Photos of the existing setup cost nothing and save a site visit.

Then answer three questions, because the answers change who you need to hire: is the work covered by an approval or permit, are there plans or drawings, and can the work be done in the current state — or does something else have to happen first, like asbestos removal? For anything structural, electrical, plumbing or gas related, the work itself has to be done by a licensed tradesperson, not by whoever is cheapest.

Every state and territory licenses building and trade work separately, and each one runs a public register you can search without an account. Ask the tradesperson for the licence number and the licence class, then look it up yourself: examples include NSW Fair Trading in New South Wales, the QBCC in Queensland, the Victorian Building Authority in Victoria, and Building and Energy in Western Australia. If your state is not listed, search for your state plus “licence check” and use the government site — a register on a government domain is the only version worth trusting.

Two details trip people up. The first is the class: a licence to do a trade is not always a licence to contract for the work, and the two can be issued separately. The second is the name — the licence should belong to the person or business you are paying, not to a subcontractor who happens to be on site. If the contract is with a company, ask who will actually do the work.

An ABN is free to check on ABN Lookup, run by the Australian Business Register, and it tells you the legal entity behind the trading name and whether the registration is still active. Make sure the business name on the quote matches the entity that holds the ABN, and that the licence is held under the same name.

If you are dealing with a company, the ABN still tells you the entity; company details are searchable through ASIC. If the price looks too good and the deposit request looks too large, this is the step that finds out why.

Ask for a certificate of currency — the one-page proof that a policy is active on a given date — for public liability insurance, and check the policy period covers the whole job. If the certificate expires mid-job, ask for the renewed one.

If the tradesperson employs anyone, workers’ compensation insurance is required by law in every state and territory; if a labourer turns up on site, that policy is what covers them. For residential building work, several states require domestic building insurance (also called home building compensation) once the job passes a threshold, and it is what protects you if the builder cannot finish or cannot fix defects. Ask who provides it, and see the certificate, before you pay anything.

A quote is a fixed price for a written scope; an estimate is a best guess and can move. Ask which one you have been given, and put the scope in writing either way. When you have two or three, compare them line by line instead of by the number at the bottom.

The lines that decide the real price are usually the ones in the small print:

• what is excluded, and what each exclusion would cost to add
• who supplies materials, and whether allowances are provisional sums that get adjusted
• who applies for permits and approvals, and who pays the fees
• site clean-up, waste removal and making good
• whether GST is included in the figure quoted
• the start date, the finish date, and what counts as a delay

A cheaper quote that excludes waste removal, permits and clean-up is not cheaper. If one quote is much lower than the others, the difference is usually a line that was left out.

Ask what the deposit covers — it is normal for it to cover materials and to hold your place in the schedule, and some states cap how much can be asked for on residential work. What you want to avoid is paying the whole job upfront, or paying for work you cannot see.

Tie the later payments to stages you can inspect, keep a receipt for every payment, and agree in writing how a variation is priced before the extra work happens. A one-line email that says “extra $400 to move the switchboard, agreed” is worth more than a conversation later.

Before work starts, confirm the contract is signed, the insurance certificates are still current, and you know who is applying for any permits. On a shared or commercial site, ask about the site induction.

For high-risk construction work, a Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS) is required — ask to see it. On a job that involves anything structural, electrical or gas, the compliance paperwork that comes at the end (certificates of compliance, inspection records) is part of what you are paying for, so ask for it at handover and keep it with the contract.

Raise it in writing and give the tradesperson a reasonable chance to fix it. Keep the contract, the quotes, the receipts and photos of the problem — statutory warranties cover residential building work in every state and territory, with time limits that vary, and they only help if you can show what was agreed and when.

If it cannot be settled directly, your state or territory consumer affairs or fair trading body can advise, and for licensed trades the licensing regulator can act on the licence itself.