What a report records, and what only a certificate does
A pre-purchase building inspection report and a certificate of occupancy both arrive as a document with a date and a signature, which is where most of the confusion starts. This guide answers one question and nothing else: what a report is not. The pages say it in their own words, and the words are blunter than most buyers expect.
This is a guide published by Dotto, not a government page, and it is general information only. Every rule names the state or territory whose law makes it, with the official page linked in the sources list at the foot of this page.
This guide is the note drawn off the line: a pre-purchase report is not on it.
This guide is the note drawn off the line, because a report is not on it. A report is a private commission by a buyer; the line's certificates are acts of a licensed office under the planning law. The rest of this page is what the official pages say a report is, what they say it is not, and who may write one.
What a report is
New South Wales states it in one paragraph. A building inspection report is a written account of the property's condition, and it will include any significant building defects or problems such as rising damp, movement in the walls (cracking), safety hazards or a faulty roof. 1 The same page sets the boundary of that account: a report does not deal with every aspect of the property, and its role is to identify any major problems visible at the time of the inspection. 1
Two details in those sentences are doing quiet work. The report is an account of what was visible at a moment in time, and the word visible is the source's, not a lawyer's gloss on it.
What the report itself says it is not
The same New South Wales page is explicit, and this is the sentence that answers this guide's question: a building inspection report should not be used as a certificate of compliance for any law, warranty or insurance policy against future problems. 1 The same paragraph closes a second door: the report is not intended to estimate the cost of fixing problems, for which a special-purpose property report is needed instead. 1
Queensland makes the same point from its own angle: a pre-purchase building inspection is not a warranty against future defects. 2 Between the two states, a report is not to be used as a certificate of compliance for any law, and it is not a warranty against future defects.
One more boundary is worth stating, because it decides who answers for what. The author of the report is responsible for its content, and agents are not responsible for the report contents. 3 A report is the author's document, not the agency's and not the seller's.
The standard it is written to
Reports are written against an Australian Standard, and New South Wales names what that standard does and does not cover: there is an Australian Standard that pre-purchase building inspection reports must comply with, but it does not include style or content. 1 In other words the standard does not set a report's style or content.
The ACT writes the standard into its own law for the reports a seller must provide: the territory's regulation requires the building and compliance inspection report to follow AS 4349.1, 4 and it defines that reference as AS 4349.1 (Inspection of buildings – Pre-purchase inspections – Residential buildings), as in force from time to time. 4
Who may write one
Queensland is the one jurisdiction whose pages in this guide name a licence for the work. In Queensland, only a licensed residential building inspector can complete pre-purchase building inspections. 2
Elsewhere the official pages name a quality of person rather than a licence class. New South Wales asks a buyer to always use a suitably qualified person such as a licensed builder, a surveyor or an architect to provide a professional building inspection report of the property. 1 Victoria asks the buyer to consider engaging a qualified building inspector, surveyor or architect before signing a contract of sale. 5 And Tasmania says plainly that the person who writes a pre-purchase report there needs no building services provider licence. 6
Set beside the certificate on this site's line, that difference is the whole point: the office that signs a certificate is defined by a licence class and registered, and the person who writes a report is chosen by the buyer and, in Tasmania, needs no building services provider licence. 6
What a report can still show you
The boundaries above do not leave a report empty. Consumer Affairs Victoria says the report will also highlight any unsafe or unauthorised renovations and/or extensions, 5 and the ACT's buyers' guide makes the same promise from the other side of the border while adding a limit: a building and compliance inspection report will identify and describe faults in the property, will also note any unsafe or unauthorised renovations and extensions, and does not generally include information regarding plumbing or electrical faults. 7
That is how a report and this site meet without overlapping: a report can be the first place a buyer learns that something about the building has no approval, and what to do about work with no approval is the subject of the last guide.
The three sentences that carry the answer
The question this guide answers, what a report is not, is settled in a handful of sentences on each regulator's page, and padding it out with the parts of a pre-purchase inspection would repeat work the inspection sites already do. Three sentences carry the whole answer, and each one is linked above: the report should not be used as a certificate of compliance for any law, warranty or insurance policy against future problems; it is not a warranty against future defects; and it is not an estimate of what repairs would cost.