Notice of decision

Subordinate Legislation Act 1994

NOTICE OF DECISION

Building (Developer Bonds) Regulations 2026

I, Nick Staikos MP, Minister for Housing and Building and Minister responsible for administering the Building Act 1993 (the Building Act), give notice under section 12 of the Subordinate Legislation Act 1994 of my decision to recommend that the Building (Developer Bonds) Regulations 2026 (the proposed Regulations) be made.

A consultation draft of the proposed Regulations and a regulatory impact statement were made available for public comment and submissions on the Engage Victoria website from 18 December 2025 to 1 February 2026. The Department of Transport and Planning received 25 written submissions and 56 survey responses during the consultation period.

The proposed Regulations support the operation of the developer bond scheme under Part 9B of the Building Act 1993 (as amended by Part 6 of the Building Legislation Amendment (Buyer Protections) Act 2025).

The proposed Regulations will prescribe, among other matters:

• The qualifications to be held by a person to be eligible for appointment as a building assessor;
• The type of reportable defective building work to be covered by the developer bond scheme;
• The method for calculating the total cost of building work;
• Exemptions from the requirement to issue a bond for eligible social housing providers and build-to-rent providers;
• A transition period so that relevant developers are only required to issue a developer bond for a residential apartment building that has a building permit issued from 1 July 2027; and
• The circumstances justifying the cancellation of the developer bond.

After consideration of the feedback received through the public consultation process, I have decided that the proposed Regulations should be made with the following changes:

• An amendment has been made to remove the automatic entitlement of certain registered building practitioners to perform building assessor functions under the developer bond scheme, ensuring that the Victorian Building Authority, trading as the Building and Plumbing Commission (BPC), has complete oversight of the pool of assessors.
• The definition of reportable defective building work has been clarified to ensure that it only includes building work carried out for or in connection with the construction of the residential apartment building.
• An amendment has been made to the meaning of total build cost to ensure it incorporates any changes in the cost of the building work during the construction of a residential apartment building.
• The exemptions for developments by Homes Victoria and community housing providers have been amended to reduce the impact of the developer bond scheme on the cost of delivering social housing.
• The list of prescribed information to be provided by the developer to the building assessor has been redrafted to improve clarity and comprehensiveness.
• An additional circumstance has been added under which the BPC may release a developer bond – upon receipt of a final report that contains no reportable defective building work.
• The timeframe that an owners corporation has to finalise its claims on the developer bond has been amended from 12 months after the BPC’s receipt of the assessor’s final report to 6 months after that date. However, the bond will remain active while any claims remain subject to a determination by the BPC, or to any review or appeal process.

These amendments have been made to improve the clarity of the proposed Regulations and to ensure that they achieve the desired policy outcomes.

After the proposed Regulations are made, they will become available for download from www.legislation.vic.gov.au

A statement of reasons summarising the feedback raised in consultation through submissions and surveys, and the rationale for the final form of the proposed Regulations will be published on the Engage Victoria website.

Dated: 22 / 06 / 2026

HON. NICK STAIKOS MP

Minister for Housing and Building