Queensland gives homeowners the strongest statutory protection in the country — a compulsory home warranty scheme with a low threshold and a broad scope. It also makes that protection conditional on one thing: using a licensed contractor. Engage an unlicensed builder and you may void your access to the scheme entirely.
A related guide to consider while planning this work is What Does a Building Designer Do in a Renovation?.
That single fact should shape how a Brisbane homeowner approaches the builder decision. The licence check takes two minutes and it is worth more than any reference.
Verify the QBCC Licence First
In Queensland, a QBCC licence is required for:
- Building work valued over $3,300 — a low threshold that captures almost every renovation
- Work over $1,100 involving hydraulic services design
- Any value at all for plumbing and drainage, gas fitting, termite management chemical treatment, fire protection, residential building inspections, building design, site classification and mechanical services
What to check on the QBCC register
Search the QBCC register before you engage anyone, and confirm:
- The licence is current, not expired, suspended or cancelled
- The class covers the work you are having done
- The name on the licence matches the entity that will sign your contract. This is where problems hide — a licensed individual contracting through an unlicensed company, or a company whose licence depends on a nominee who has since left.
- Any disciplinary history or directions to rectify recorded against the licence
Always ask to see the licence. A digital QBCC licence has the same legal standing as a physical card and makes verification straightforward. Also run a company search on the contracting entity — how long it has traded, who the directors are, and whether those directors have previously been involved in companies that were wound up.
Confirm Home Warranty Cover
The Queensland Home Warranty Scheme is compulsory for residential construction work valued over $3,300 including materials, labour and GST. The contractor pays the premium to the QBCC, and the cost is included in your contract.
What the warranty scheme covers
What it covers:
- Non-completion where the contractor fails to finish the work
- Defective work where the contractor will not fix defects
- Damage during non-completion from fire, storm, vandalism or theft
- Subsidence or settlement of the building
Cover runs 6 years and 6 months from the earliest of the contract date, the premium payment date, or commencement of work — extending a further six months where the work took more than six months to complete. The maximum payout is $200,000, with limitations and exclusions.
Two practical points. Confirm the premium has actually been paid rather than accepting an assurance; the QBCC can confirm this. And understand the consequence of the alternative: work done by an unlicensed contractor may fall outside the scheme entirely, which on a $250,000 extension is a catastrophic exposure.
Where to Find Candidates
In rough order of reliability:
- A recommendation from someone whose completed project you have walked through. Not a friend of a friend — someone who lived through it and will tell you what went wrong.
- Your building designer’s or architect’s list. Designers work with builders repeatedly and know who prices honestly and who finishes.
- Master Builders Queensland and HIA member directories. Not a quality guarantee, but an indicator of a business operating formally.
- Local project signage. Builders working in your suburb on similar housing understand the specific issues — the stumps, the termites, the slope, the character overlay.
- Trade referrals. A good plumber or electrician knows which builders pay on time and run organised sites.
Be cautious with lead-generation platforms, which connect you with builders who paid for the lead rather than builders who do the best work.
Brisbane-Specific Experience Matters
This city’s housing stock demands particular knowledge. A builder who works mostly on new slab-on-ground homes in the growth corridors will struggle with a Paddington Queenslander.
Ask specifically about:
- Termites. How do they handle discovering active workings or historic damage mid-job? What is their rate for framing replacement? How do they maintain the termite management system where new work penetrates it?
- Restumping and house raising. Have they done it, do they subcontract it, and how do they sequence it against the rest?
- Build-under work. Do they understand the 2.4 metre habitable ceiling requirement and the 9.5 metre height limit, and have they done projects that had to work within both?
- The character overlay. Have they worked in your suburb, and do they understand what the development approval conditions will require?
- Steep sites. How do they handle access, craneage and engineered footings on a falling block?
- Storm season programming. How do they sequence work with an open roof through summer?
- Subtropical detailing. Ventilation, shading, stormwater capacity, and keeping the termite inspection zone clear.
A builder who answers these confidently has worked on Brisbane’s real housing stock. One who has not considered them is telling you something.
A related guide to consider while planning this work is Do You Need Council Approval to Renovate in Brisbane? The 2026 Rules Explained.
The Reference Check That Works
Ask for the last three, not the best three
Every builder supplies three references who will say good things. Ask instead for the contact details of the last three projects completed, and ask those owners:
- What was the contract sum, and what was the final invoice? The gap is the most informative number you will get.
- How many variations were there, and were they priced before the work or after?
- Did the project finish on the contracted date, and if not, why?
- How did the builder respond when they opened the floor and found termite damage?
- Were the site kept clean and the neighbours managed?
- How was the defects period handled?
- Would you use them again — and, the key follow-up, what would you do differently?
Ask to visit a current site as well as a completed one. A live site shows how the builder works: whether it is organised, whether materials are protected from Brisbane rain, whether a supervisor is present, whether the trades are the same faces each week.
The Site Visit That Tells You Most
Ask each shortlisted builder to walk the property before quoting, and watch what they do.
A builder who works properly in Brisbane will get into the subfloor with a torch. They will look at the stumps and the ant caps, check whether the vents are clear, look at where the downpipes discharge, note the ground levels against the cladding, and look for termite mudding. They will ask when the house was last inspected for termites, whether it is pre-1947, and whether you have checked the flood mapping.
A builder who walks through the internal rooms, takes some measurements and leaves has priced the visible work and made assumptions about everything else. On Brisbane’s timber housing stock, those assumptions become your variations.
Getting Comparable Quotes
Control the documentation
Tender on identical documents. Every builder prices the same drawings, specification, finishes schedule and inclusions list. Incomplete documentation means each builder assumes something different, and the cheapest quote is the one that assumed the least.
Require an itemised breakdown — trade-by-trade allocations, preliminaries, margin and any provisional sums.
Interrogate provisional sums. A builder can win a tender by setting them low and adjusting upward once you are committed. A $6,000 allowance for tapware and fixtures across two bathrooms is not realistic.
Check the exclusions. Common ones that become expensive in Brisbane: termite damage and framing replacement, restumping, asbestos removal, rock or difficult excavation, service upgrades, stormwater works, landscaping, driveways, painting, floor coverings, certifier and council fees, and site amenities.
Be suspicious of the outlier. If three quotes land at $270,000, $285,000 and $190,000, the low quote has misread the scope or intends to recover the gap through variations. Ask them to walk you through their figure.
Understanding the Margin
A builder’s quote has three components: direct trade and material costs; preliminaries covering site establishment, scaffolding, waste removal, supervision and insurances; and margin, the gross profit before overheads.
- Preliminaries typically run 8 to 15 per cent of a Brisbane residential project, higher on steep or access-constrained sites
- Margin typically runs 12 to 20 per cent for mainstream work, 18 to 30 per cent at the premium end
A builder quoting materially below these ranges is underestimating, intending to recover through variations, or running so thin that a single problem project puts them under. The productive negotiation is about scope and specification, not margin.
The Contract
Use a standard form
Use a standard form — Master Builders Queensland or HIA residential contracts — rather than a builder’s own document. Provisions to read carefully:
- The contract price and what it includes. Cross-reference against the quote and specification.
- The progress payment schedule. Payments tied to completed stages, not dates. Deposit amounts are regulated in Queensland.
- The variation clause. Variations must be in writing, priced and signed before work proceeds. This single clause prevents most disputes.
- Completion date and extension of time provisions. Understand what entitles the builder to extra time — weather, variations, your decisions, latent conditions. Brisbane’s storm season generates legitimate weather claims.
- Latent conditions. Specifically, what happens when termite damage or rot is found. A good Brisbane contract addresses this in advance.
- Liquidated damages for late completion, if any.
- The defects liability period.
- Dispute resolution and the process before escalation.
Warning Signs
- Pressure to decide quickly, particularly a discount that expires
- A request for a deposit above the regulated amount
- Reluctance to provide a QBCC licence number or confirm home warranty cover
- A single-page quote for a six-figure project
- No written contract, or a suggestion that one is unnecessary
- Cash discounts, which remove your consumer protections along with the GST — and in Queensland, potentially your warranty cover
- The person quoting is not the person building
- Vagueness about subcontractors, particularly the waterproofer and the termite management installer
- Unwillingness to let you speak to past clients directly
- A pattern of blaming previous clients
Managing the Job
- Make decisions early and stick to them. Owner indecision is the largest single cause of delay and entitles the builder to extensions of time.
- Order long-lead items before construction.
- Hold a weekly site meeting with a short written record.
- Approve variations in writing before the work happens.
- Photograph everything before it is covered — waterproofing, framing, stumps, termite management, service runs. In Brisbane the framing photographs matter most, because they record the termite condition at that date.
- Do not pay ahead of the schedule. Paying early to help a builder’s cash flow is how homeowners become unsecured creditors.
- Track the certifier’s mandatory inspections and never allow a stage to be covered before it has been seen.
If Things Go Wrong
The escalation path
Raise the issue with the builder in writing, describing the defect and the resolution sought. If that fails, the QBCC handles complaints about licensed contractors, can inspect the work, and can issue a direction to rectify defective work. This is a genuinely useful mechanism and it is free to homeowners.
Beyond that, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal hears building disputes. Where the contractor has failed to complete or will not fix defects, the Queensland Home Warranty Scheme is the claim path — which is why verifying the licence and the cover at the outset matters more than any other check in this guide.
What Good Looks Like
A good Brisbane renovation builder holds a current QBCC licence in the correct name, confirms home warranty cover without being chased, quotes from complete documentation with an itemised breakdown, prices provisional sums realistically, uses a standard form contract, and issues written variations before doing work. They understand termites, stumps and the build-under height rules. They have a supervisor on your job regularly, subcontractors who have worked with them for years, and past clients who describe the process as unremarkable.
That last quality is underrated. The best outcome is not a dramatic story — it is a project that finished roughly when it was meant to, cost roughly what it was meant to, and left you with a builder you would call again.
For cost benchmarks, see our Brisbane renovation cost guide, and for the approval framework, our guide to Brisbane approvals.
Sole Traders, Small Builders and Volume Operators
Brisbane’s residential market has three distinct contractor types.
- The trade-based sole operator — often a carpenter running small jobs with regular subcontractors. Good value on bathrooms, kitchens and decks. Limited capacity for structural work, approvals coordination or formal contract administration.
- The small to mid-sized builder — three to eight projects with a supervisor on each. The right choice for extensions, whole-house renovations, and anything requiring a development application. This is where most Brisbane renovation work sits.
- The house raising and build-under specialist — a genuinely distinct Brisbane category. Raising a house is specialised work and the contractors who do it well are a small group. If your project involves a lift, use one of them rather than a general builder subcontracting it blind.
- The volume or project builder — systematised and cost-effective on standard work, poorly suited to renovation where nothing is standard.
The Site Visit That Tells You Most
Ask each shortlisted builder to walk the property before quoting, and watch what they do.
A builder who works properly in Brisbane will get into the subfloor with a torch. They will inspect the stumps and the ant caps, check whether the vents are clear, look for termite mudding, note where the downpipes discharge, check the ground levels against the cladding, and look at the underfloor height to assess build-under potential. They will ask whether the house is pre-1947 and whether you have run a FloodWise report.
A builder who walks the internal rooms, takes some measurements and leaves has priced the visible work and assumed the rest. On Brisbane’s timber housing stock, those assumptions become your variations.
Questions Worth Asking at the First Meeting
- How many projects are you running, and who supervises mine day to day?
- Are your key trades — carpenter, plumber, electrician, waterproofer, termite installer — regulars or engaged per job?
- What is your rate for framing replacement, and what happens when you open the wall and find termite damage?
- How do you maintain the termite management system and inspection zone where new work meets old?
- How do you detail the threshold between the internal floor and the deck?
- How do you programme around the wet season?
- Have you done a raise and build under, and do you understand the two height rules?
- Which parts of my project concern you most?
That last question is the most revealing. A builder who identifies genuine risks — the stumps, the termites, the slope, the character overlay, the storm season — has read the project. One who says it all looks straightforward has not.