Social commentators link Australia's love of DIY to our convict days, but botch a home job and it could cost you dearly even years after you've moved on.
"It is all about great Australian ingenuity and getting the job done," says David Lawrence, the manager for NSW and the ACT of Archicentre, the home advisory service of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.
In NSW last year alone, says Lawrence, 18 per cent of Archicentre's pre-purchase home inspections turned up illegal work in breach of the Building Code of Australia, breaches that can invalidate insurance and jeopardise, among other things, the resale value of the property.
What's more, warns Pietro Scalise, a building consultant with the Sydney Building Information Centre, former home owners who carried out illegal work could be liable long after selling up, whether it be small electrical wiring or plumbing jobs or full-scale attic conversions where renovators fail to take into account, say, floor-to-ceiling space requirements.
"The DIY trend has been extended from legitimate maintenance tasks to areas where a licensed tradesman should be called in to do the job," says Lawrence. "Areas like plumbing and electrical work are regulated and you need to use a licensed tradesman," he says. "The building code covers a whole range of standards. If damage to a home can be specifically linked to illegal building, wiring or plumbing there could be a major issue with the insurance payout."
Both Lawrence and Scalise agree that popular television programs make renovating look easy. Yet complaints concerning owner-builders have risen so dramatically that in July the Department of Fair Trading introduced mandatory courses for anyone (19,500 in NSW last year) applying for an owner-builder permit.
The course, held at TAFE colleges and the Sydney Building Information Centre, targets DIY-ers undertaking more than $12,000 worth of work as an owner-builder. "There were so many problems occurring with owner-builder projects," says the Department of Fair Trading spokesman Christian Fanker. "There was a lack of detailed knowledge about everything, from working with sub-contractors to taxes, construction basics, council requirements and insurance issues such as workers' compensation and home warranty."
Scalise says that few home renovators realise that if they undertake work that turns out to be faulty the next owner can seek to recover the cost of the damage. "An owner-builder must take out home warranty insurance that covers any faults for up to six years after the work has been completed," Scalise says. "So if the property is sold during that time that work is covered by that insurance. The policy transfers to the new owner.
"If you've put in a new bathroom and it ends up having a damp problem, well, that can be very costly if the next owner comes to you looking for money to rectify
the problem."
Home warranty insurance does not cover the owner-builder still living in the property. If a licensed and insured sub-contractor carried out the work, his or her insurance covers those faults. Lawrence says illegal electrical wiring can also land renovators in hot water. "If people undertake illegal wiring and their home burns down, the insurance company could have a strong case to deny the claim," he says.
The Insurance Council of Australia's executive manager of corporate affairs, Rod Frail, says that in the cases where the renovation or building work is a "blatant breach of building codes" an insurer would be unlikely to pay a claim. "If you've wired up lights around your pool, bypassed the fuse box and then your house burns down, then the insurance company might not pay out," Frail says. "It would depend on individual circumstances, but a very amateur job in a regulated area might result in an insurance policy being rendered invalid, especially if there was a flagrant disregard for the building codes."
Frail says that faulty work completed without council approval would certainly provide grounds for insurers to deny a claim. "That would include alteration to a roof structure that subsequently collapses - things like that," he says.
Frail says prospective home buyers and their solicitors should ensure that they have proper building inspections carried out before they purchase a property.
Lawrence says solicitors should make sure that property vendors provide all the right insurance papers, including any owner-builder home warranty insurance.
He says that local councils may be loath to make a property owner demolish an illegal structure. But it is not unheard-of. "Councils have rules and regulations for the benefit of the wider community," he says.
know it yourself
The Sydney Building and Information Centre can be contacted on 8303 0525.
An owner-builder one-day course (for those with some construction-industry knowledge) costs $175, and a two-day course for a complete novice costs $295.
Other useful contacts:
Archicentre, 9555 5111.
Master Builders Association, 8586 3555.
Housing Industry Association, 8878 0400.
