Construction: Changes on the horizon

The Domestic Building Contracts Act, the Building Act and the Act responsible for regulating the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal will all go through amendments, and most of these changes will focus on consumer protection.

A new dispute resolution body will be created, the Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria, and it will handle all relevant disputes through conciliation, as a first step, before a party is able to make a claim or application to the VCAT or a court.

Controversially, the Building Practitioners Board will be abolished and will have its functions transferred to the Victorian Building Authority.

Other changes regarding building practitioners include the registration system, which now requires builders to renew their licenses every five years in order to continue their operations, and those seeking to acquire a license or renew an existing one will have to meet new requirements. Forecast changes also involve a few alterations to processes and avenues related to breaches to the industry code of conduct.

Whether these changes will be for the better or for the worse, only tie will show, but for now, shifts are happening quite slowly, being seen maybe later this year or only in 2017.

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