New South Wales Consolidated Acts

HOME BUILDING ACT 1989 - SECT 92

92 Contract work must be insured

(1) A person must not do residential building work under a contract unless:

(a) a contract of insurance that complies with this Act is in force in relation to that work in the name of the person who contracted to do the work, and

(b) a certificate of insurance evidencing the contract of insurance, in a form prescribed by the regulations, has been provided to the other party (or one of the other parties) to the contract.

Maximum penalty: 1,000 penalty units in the case of a corporation and 200 penalty units in any other case.

(2) A person must not demand or receive a payment under a contract for residential building work (whether as a deposit or other payment and whether or not work under the contract has commenced) from any other party to the contract unless:

(a) a contract of insurance that complies with this Act is in force in relation to that work in the name of the person who contracted to do the work, and

(b) a certificate of insurance evidencing the contract of insurance, in a form prescribed by the regulations, has been provided to the other party (or one of the other parties) to the contract.

Maximum penalty: 1,000 penalty units in the case of a corporation and 200 penalty units in any other case.

(3) This section does not apply if the contract price does not exceed $5,000 or (if the contract price is not known) the reasonable market cost of the labour and materials involved does not exceed $5,000.

(4) If the same parties enter into two or more contracts to carry out work in stages, the contract price for the purposes of subsection (3) is taken to be the sum of the contract prices under each of the contracts.

(5) The regulations may prescribe another amount for the purposes of subsection (3) and an amount so prescribed is to apply in the place of the amount referred to in that subsection.

(6) To avoid doubt, this section extends to residential building work that is also owner-builder work.