Everything that has to exist before the certificate does
Every item on the left of the line is something that has to be true before the document can be signed. This guide sets them out in the order the law itself puts them in, item by item, with the state whose rule each one is and the page it comes from.
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.
Most of what stands behind the certificate is the work of two people: the certifier who has to see the building at the right moments, and the applicant who has to give the right things to the certifier at the right times. The rest is money and paperwork, and one of the items can stop everything: a stage that was never inspected.
The inspections behind it
The principal certifier will attend the site to carry out mandatory inspections at certain stages. 1 In New South Wales the arrangement has two sides. The certifier attends; the applicant makes sure the certifier is told. The obligations of an applicant include communicating with the builder to ensure the certifier is notified when work reaches each stage. 1
A missed stage is not a formality with a late fee attached. Building Commission NSW puts the consequence in plain terms: if a mandatory inspection is missed, the certifier may have to refuse to issue an occupation certificate. 1 This is the red break on the line.
The designs and declarations behind it
Two sets of documents sit behind the two certificates, and the law names the moment each is owed. Before a construction certificate or complying development certificate is issued, certifiers must ensure all the regulated designs and design compliance declarations they require are provided. 2 Later, at the far end of the work, the building compliance declaration and any as-built designs must be lodged on the NSW Planning Portal before the application for an occupation certificate. 2
Those two requirements are what make the certificate more than an inspection result. The building has to have been documented as it was actually built, not only as it was approved, and the declaration has to reach the portal before the final application is made.
One further item comes before the building work even starts. A developer must nominate the building practitioner, design practitioner and principal certifier working on the development, and the nomination is made on the NSW Planning Portal. 3 The certifier who will sign the final certificate is therefore a named person, chosen and recorded before the first stage is inspected.
The money before the certificate
New South Wales collects three separate sums around the occupation certificate, and the pages that state them attach each to a different point in the application.
Fees come first in time, because they come with the work: upfront fee payment is required for any work to determine an application for a development certificate or to carry out a function of a principal certifier. 1
The building work levy is due with the application itself: it must be paid as part of the application for an occupation certificate for a regulated building class, currently classes 2, 3 and 9c. 3
The defects bond is the narrowest of the three and the largest in effect. For residential apartment buildings four storeys or higher, where the contract was made on or after 1 January 2018, the developer must lodge a building defects bond of 2% of the building contract price before applying for an occupation certificate. 4
The three sums are worth reading together, because they show that the certificate application is the point the state chose to collect money that stands behind the building's future: an application fee, a levy, and a bond for defects that have not happened yet.
The insurance check
The Australian Capital Territory puts its check at the certifier's elbow rather than on the applicant's desk. Where residential building work requires insurance, the building certifier must check the insurance is in place before the certifier can issue a building commencement notice to the builder. 5 In the ACT the insurance check gates the building commencement notice. A separate ACT rule, on the property developer licence, bars the certificate of occupancy where the section 28AA condition is unmet; it is drawn in the guide to the names. 6
The notices, and the audit that stops everything
One New South Wales notice has a window measured in months. On Building Commission NSW's page for lodging an expected completion notice for regulated buildings, notice must be given at least 6 months, but no more than 12 months, before applying for an occupation certificate. 7 The window runs in both directions, so leaving the notice too late is a problem and giving it too early is also outside the rule.
The last item in this section is not the applicant's to do. The regulator may choose the building work for an audit, and an audit in progress prevents the developer from applying for an occupation certificate. 3 The audit is the regulator's choice, not the developer's, which is why it belongs with the items that have to be in place.
The applicant's own duties
Two of the obligations in this guide are duties of the person the law calls the applicant. An applicant is the person seeking a certificate, or engaging a certifier for other certification work, under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. 1 That person's duties include meeting the conditions of any development consent and ensuring the development is carried out in accordance with the approved plans. 1 The plans the applicant built to are the same plans the certifier will have watched being built.
The order, assembled from the items' own timing
No single page sets out the whole sequence, and this guide does not invent one. What it can do is place each item at the point its own page puts it: the practitioner nomination before building work starts 3; the regulated designs and declarations before the construction certificate or complying development certificate is issued 2; the stage inspections as the work reaches each stage 1; the completion notice in a window of at least 6 and no more than 12 months before the final application 7; the lodged compliance declaration and as-built designs before that application 2; the levy with the application itself 3; and the defects bond, for the residential apartment buildings of four storeys or higher where the contract was made on or after 1 January 2018, before the application too 4. The audit sits wherever it falls: at any point it is running, the application cannot be made. 3
Which states this guide draws
The items above are New South Wales rules except for the insurance check, which is the ACT's. Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory have their own requirements behind the certificate, and the pages this guide is written from do not set them out, so this guide does not either. The two flanks of the line are drawn where the pages reach, and the gap is said out loud rather than filled.