Victorian Consolidated Legislation

House Contracts Guarantee Act 1987 - SECT 5

PART 2 GUARANTEES

Guarantee required in relation to certain contracts

5. Guarantee required in relation to certain contracts



(1) A person must not-

   (a)  enter into a contract to perform domestic building work; or

   (b)  enter into a contract to manage or supervise the performance of
        domestic building work-

unless a guarantee given under this Act by the approved guarantor is in force
in relation to the domestic building work or the supervision contract, as the
case requires.

Penalty: 100 penalty units.

(1A) A person must not enter into a contract to sell a dwelling-house under
which the purchaser will become entitled to possession or to the receipt of
rents and profits before the end of any applicable guarantee period unless-

   (a)  a guarantee given under this Act by the approved guarantor is in
        force; or

   (b)  a conditional certificate of guarantee under section 6(3) has been
        issued by the approved guarantor-

in relation to the dwelling-house.

Penalty: 100 penalty units.

(1B) A person must not, for the purposes of avoiding this Act, enter into more
than one contract to perform, in relation to the same dwelling-house, domestic
building work of the class referred to in paragraph (b), (c) or (d) of the
definition of domestic building work in section 3(1).

Penalty: 100 penalty units.

(1C) If-

   (a)  a person enters into more than one contract to perform domestic
        building work of the class referred to in paragraph (b), (c) or (d) of
        the definition of domestic building work in section 3(1); and

   (b)  the works substantially form the same undertaking; and

   (c)  the person had, instead of entering into those contracts, entered into
        a single contract for the performance of those works, the contract
        would be a domestic building work contract-

those contracts are deemed, for the purposes of this Act, to constitute a
single domestic building work contract entered into on the date on which the
last of those contracts was entered into.

(1D) For the purposes of subsections (1B) and (1C), if a person referred to in
those subsections-

   (a)  is a director of a corporation, a contract entered into by the
        corporation; or

   (b)  is a body corporate, a contract entered into by another body corporate
        that is related to that body corporate (within the meaning of section
        50 of the Corporations Act)-

is deemed to be a contract entered into by that person.

(2) Despite subsections (1), (1A) and (1B), a contract entered into in
contravention of any of those subsections is not void by reason only of the
contravention but it is voidable at the option of the building owner or
purchaser (as the case requires) at any time before completion of the contract
or within 60 days after entering into the contract, whichever is the earlier.