Victoria’s approval system works differently from every other Australian state, and the difference trips up almost everyone renovating in Melbourne for the first time. There are two separate approvals, they answer different questions, they are issued by different people, and you may need one, both, or neither.
Getting this straight before you design anything saves months. Getting it wrong means either an unnecessary planning application or, far worse, work that proceeds without a permit it needed.
The Two Permits Explained
A planning permit — should you be allowed to do this here?
A planning permit is issued by your local council and assesses your proposal against the local planning scheme: the zone, any overlays, neighbourhood character, amenity impacts on neighbours, and the state’s residential design standards.
It answers the question of whether the development is appropriate for the site. It considers your neighbours, and in most cases they will be notified and can object.
A building permit — is it structurally sound and code compliant?
A building permit is issued by a registered building surveyor, who may be a private surveyor or a council surveyor. It assesses the proposal against the Building Act 1993, the Building Regulations 2018 and the National Construction Code — structure, fire safety, energy efficiency, health and amenity.
It answers the question of whether the building will be safe and compliant. It does not consider your neighbours’ views, and there is no objection process.
The critical relationship: where a planning permit is required, it must be obtained before the building permit can be issued. The building surveyor cannot issue a permit for work that lacks a required planning permit.
When You Need a Planning Permit in Melbourne
The trigger is almost always an overlay or a zone provision rather than the work itself. Common triggers:
- Heritage Overlay. The most common trigger in inner Melbourne. Where an overlay applies, a permit is generally needed for demolition, external alterations, additions visible from the street, new outbuildings, front fences and sometimes even painting previously unpainted surfaces.
- Neighbourhood Character Overlay or Design and Development Overlay, which impose siting, height and materials controls.
- Significant Landscape Overlay or Vegetation Protection Overlay, which regulate tree removal and works near trees.
- Land Subject to Inundation Overlay or Special Building Overlay — flood-related controls covering a surprising amount of inner Melbourne along creek lines and old watercourses.
- Bushfire Management Overlay in the outer east, the Dandenongs, the Mornington Peninsula and Melbourne’s fringes.
- Erosion Management and Environmental Significance overlays.
- Small lots. On lots under 300 square metres in certain residential zones, an assessment against the state’s residential development standards is triggered.
- More than one dwelling on a lot, other than a small second dwelling that meets the new exemption.
Conversely, a straightforward single-storey rear extension on a standard lot in a general residential zone with no overlays frequently needs no planning permit at all — only a building permit. Many Melbourne homeowners are surprised by how permissive this is.
When You Need a Building Permit
Nearly always. In Victoria a building permit is required for most building work, including:
- Extensions and additions of any size
- Structural alterations, including removing load-bearing walls
- Restumping and reblocking
- Re-roofing where the structure is altered
- Decks above a specified height
- Carports, garages and most outbuildings above small size thresholds
- Retaining walls above a specified height
- Swimming pools and safety barriers
- Underpinning
- Demolition
- Small second dwellings — a building permit is always required, regardless of the planning exemption
Work that generally does not need a building permit: internal painting and decorating, replacing floor coverings, non-structural internal alterations, and like-for-like kitchen and bathroom fitouts that do not affect structure. Plumbing, electrical and gas work still require licensed practitioners and their own compliance certificates regardless.
Bathroom renovations — a caution
A like-for-like bathroom fitout may not require a building permit, but any structural change to the floor, any alteration to the building’s waterproofing envelope, or any work to a wall that turns out to be load-bearing does. Discuss it with a building surveyor before demolition. See our guide to waterproofing and wet area compliance in Melbourne.
The New Small Second Dwelling Rules
Victoria has substantially liberalised secondary dwellings. Under the reformed provisions, a small second dwelling of 60 square metres or less generally requires no planning permit in most residential and rural zones.
The conditions:
- Maximum 60 square metres, including a kitchen, bathroom and toilet
- On the same lot as an existing dwelling
- Cannot be subdivided or sold separately from the main house
- Cannot connect to reticulated natural gas — it must be all-electric
- No dedicated car parking required
- A building permit is always required
The exemption does not apply where the land is affected by flooding, environmental or other special planning controls, including heritage overlays. On lots under 300 square metres in certain residential zones, an assessment against the residential standards still applies.
This is a genuinely significant change and makes Victoria one of the easier states in which to add a second dwelling. See our guide to granny flats and small second dwellings in Melbourne.
Energy Efficiency Requirements
Victoria applies the National Construction Code energy provisions, which since late 2023 require a minimum 7-star NatHERS rating for new dwellings, along with a whole-of-home energy budget covering heating, cooling, hot water, lighting and any on-site generation.
For renovations, the requirements generally apply to the new work rather than the whole existing building, though the scope of assessment depends on the extent of the alteration. On a substantial Melbourne extension this typically means:
- High-performance or double glazing in the new work — $10,000 to $30,000 depending on glazed area
- Insulation to walls, ceiling and floor of the addition to specified R-values
- Efficient hot water and heating systems
- An energy rating assessment — $400 to $1,200
Because Melbourne’s climate has real heating loads, these requirements deliver more comfort benefit here than in warmer capitals. See our guide to energy efficiency upgrades and rebates for Melbourne homes.
The Approval Process, Step by Step
If a planning permit is required
- Pre-application meeting with council planners — free in most Melbourne councils and extremely valuable
- Prepare the application — plans, a site and context analysis, a design response, shadow diagrams, and where a heritage overlay applies a heritage impact statement
- Lodge and pay fees — $1,500 to $5,000 depending on the value of works
- Council assessment, including internal referrals to heritage, arborist and engineering officers
- Public notice — letters to adjoining owners and a site notice, usually 14 days
- Objections and response, often followed by requested amendments
- Decision — a permit, a notice of decision, or a refusal
- VCAT review if refused or if objectors appeal, adding six to eighteen months
Typical Melbourne timelines: eight to sixteen weeks for a straightforward application with no objections, four to nine months where a heritage overlay applies or objections are lodged, and considerably longer if the matter reaches VCAT.
The building permit stage
- Appoint a registered building surveyor — you choose them, and you pay them
- Provide construction documentation, structural engineering, soil report and energy rating
- Permit issued, typically within two to four weeks of a complete application
- Mandatory inspections during construction at specified stages — footings, frame, and final
- Occupancy permit or certificate of final inspection at completion
What It All Costs in Melbourne
- Planning permit application fee — $1,500 to $5,000, scaled to value of works
- Building permit — $2,000 to $6,000 including inspections
- Architectural or drafting documentation — $6,000 to $40,000
- Structural engineering — $2,500 to $6,000
- Soil report — $600 to $1,500, and essential on Melbourne’s reactive clay
- Land survey (feature and level) — $1,200 to $3,000
- Energy rating assessment — $400 to $1,200
- Heritage impact statement — $1,800 to $5,000
- Arborist report — $800 to $2,500
- Town planner, where used — $3,000 to $12,000
Allow $12,000 to $35,000 in permits and consultants on a mid-sized Melbourne renovation before construction begins.
Domestic Building Contracts and Insurance
Separate from permits, Victorian law imposes contract requirements on residential building work.
- A major domestic building contract in writing is required for work above a specified threshold, with prescribed terms including a fixed price or a clear pricing method, progress payment stages, and warranties
- Domestic building insurance must be taken out by the builder for work above a threshold, protecting you if the builder dies, disappears or becomes insolvent
- Builders carrying out domestic building work above the threshold must be registered with the Victorian Building Authority, and registration can be checked online
- Statutory warranties apply regardless of what the contract says
Verify registration and insurance before paying any deposit. See our guide to finding and vetting a Melbourne builder.
Building Without a Permit
Unpermitted building work in Victoria does not resolve itself. Councils can issue building notices and orders requiring work to be made compliant or demolished, and penalties apply.
More commonly it surfaces at sale. A purchaser’s conveyancer requests a property information certificate and a building permit search, and unpermitted work becomes a contract issue. Rectifying it requires a building permit for existing work, which may mean exposing concealed structure and obtaining retrospective engineering certification — routinely more expensive than obtaining the permit originally.
There is also an insurance dimension: unpermitted structural work that contributes to a loss may give an insurer grounds to decline a claim.
A Practical Sequence
- Check your planning scheme first. Free property reports available online show zone and overlays for any Victorian address. This single step determines whether you face a three-month process or a nine-month one.
- Talk to a council planner early if any overlay applies.
- Engage a building surveyor before design is finalised. They will flag compliance issues while changes are still cheap.
- Get the soil report before designing footings. On Melbourne clay this drives cost more than any other technical input.
- Design to avoid triggering a planning permit where that is realistic — staying within setbacks, height and site coverage standards can save months.
- Keep every certificate. Building permit, inspection records, occupancy permit, plumbing and electrical compliance certificates. At sale they are worth far more than they cost.
Melbourne’s system is genuinely more permissive than its reputation for work that stays within the rules, and genuinely slower than most people expect for work that does not. The projects that stall are almost never stopped by the system — they are stopped by a design drawn before anyone checked which overlays applied.
Working With Your Building Surveyor
The registered building surveyor is the person who issues your building permit, carries out mandatory inspections during construction, and issues the final certificate. You appoint them and you pay them, but their statutory duty is to the regulatory framework rather than to you.
What to understand about the relationship:
- They cannot approve work that does not comply, however commercially inconvenient that is
- They must carry out mandatory inspections at defined stages. Missing one — commonly the frame inspection before lining, or a wet area inspection before tiling — creates a serious problem at final certificate stage.
- Their registration can be checked on the Victorian Building Authority register
- Engaging one early, before design is finalised, is the most efficient thing you can do. Most will give a preliminary view at little or no cost, and that view can save weeks of redesign.
Neighbour Notification and Objections
Building permits involve no notification and no objection process. Planning permits generally do, and in established Melbourne suburbs objections are common.
Councils must consider objections but are not bound by them. Objections carry weight when they raise matters the planning scheme addresses — overshadowing, overlooking, heritage impact, neighbourhood character, tree removal. They carry little weight on construction noise, property values or general dislike of a design.
Approaches that reduce objection risk:
- Speak to adjoining neighbours before lodging, with drawings in hand
- Address overshadowing and overlooking explicitly, with shadow diagrams and screening where windows overlook
- Keep bulk away from boundaries and articulate long walls
- Offer to share a dilapidation report, which reassures neighbours about damage risk
- Where an objection is lodged, engage with its substance — amended designs are approved far more often than defended ones
Where a matter proceeds to VCAT, budget $15,000 to $80,000 and six to eighteen months. An experienced planning consultant will know how comparable proposals have fared and whether yours sits within established precedent.
The Final Certificate
The last step, and the one most often neglected. Depending on the work, the building surveyor issues either an occupancy permit or a certificate of final inspection at completion.
Without it you may have unpermitted work in the eyes of a future purchaser’s conveyancer, difficulty with insurance claims, and problems obtaining finance against the property. Obtaining it requires that all mandatory inspections were carried out, all compliance certificates are in place — plumbing, electrical, structural, energy — and all permit conditions have been met.
Make your final progress payment conditional on it. This single contractual step is the most reliable way to ensure the paperwork is actually completed, and it costs nothing.
Keep the certificate with your compliance documents. Together they are the evidence that the work was done lawfully, and at sale they are worth far more than they cost to obtain.