In some recent inspections of building sites around Townsville the inspectors issued three fines to people doing work without the proper licence. This is a reduction from the last time that they did the inspections of licences when they fined a lot more people for improper licensing.

All three of the people fined for not having the appropriate licence were all working on the same owner builder’s building site.

The owner builder himself did not have an owner builder’s license. An owner builder license is required for any work where the total material and labour cost would exceed $15,000 if done by professionals. The owner builder course is a relatively short course that I had to do before starting the work on our house.

There were two other carpenters working on the same house that were also fined for not having the appropriate license for the work they were doing.

To avoid getting fined for improper licensing of tradespeople you should make sure to do the following:

• Check the license of any and all contractors that you hire
• Always check if you need a license before starting any building, renovation of home improvement projects. Even a seemingly small project like putting in a shed requires council approval in some parts of Australia (including Townsville)

If you are unsure about any of the licensing, and if your contractor does have the proper license it would be worth giving a call to the local building authority. Here in Queensland you can check out any licensed trades person on the BSA web-site as long as you have their license number.