Before you sign a landscaping contract in Victoria

Property & tenancy · VIC

Deposits are capped, progress payments must track real progress, you may have five clear business days to change your mind, and a change to the job has its own written rules.

Deposits are capped by law

Under the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 (Vic), a builder must not demand or receive a deposit of more than 5% where the contract price is $20,000 or more, or more than 10% where it is under $20,000. If a builder does not comply, the owner may avoid the contract at any time before it is completed.

Progress payments have to follow progress

The Act sets maximum percentages at each stage for contracts that follow its staged table. Most landscaping contracts do not. For those, the rule still binds: a builder must not demand or receive any amount or instalment that is not directly related to the progress of the building work. A payment schedule weighted heavily to the front of the job is worth questioning.

You may have five clear business days

For a major domestic building contract, the owner may withdraw at any time before the end of 5 clear business days after receiving a copy of the signed contract. The builder may retain $100 plus demonstrable out-of-pocket expenses. Two exceptions: where you and the builder previously entered a contract in substantially the same terms, and where you received independent advice from an Australian legal practitioner before signing. If the contract should have carried a cooling-off notice and did not, you may withdraw within 7 days of becoming aware of that.

Changes to the job are not a handshake

If you want to change the plans, you give the builder a notice. Unless the change requires no permit variation, causes no delay and adds no more than 2% to the price, the builder must give you written notice of the cost and effect, and must not proceed until you return a signed request attached to that notice. A builder who skips this is not entitled to recover the money for the variation, except where the tribunal allows it.

The checklist

1. Is the whole price over $10,000, and does any part of the work count as building work? 2. Is the practitioner registered for that class of work? 3. Is the contract in writing, signed by both parties, with a cooling-off notice? 4. Is the deposit within the cap? 5. Does the payment schedule follow actual progress? 6. Is insurance documentation in hand if the work is over the threshold? 7. Do you know how a variation will be recorded before the first one arrives?

General information about Victorian law. A contract worth signing is worth having read — if the answers above are unclear, that is the moment to talk to a lawyer, not after the first invoice you disagree with.

This is legal information, not legal advice.