Warranties on earthworks in Victoria: who covers what, for how long, and what to do if it fails
There is no separate excavation licence in Victoria and no product warranty on a hole in the ground. Three things protect you instead, stacked: the contractor’s written workmanship warranty, which should be 12 months minimum on levels and compaction; the implied warranties in the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 (Vic) where the work is domestic building work; and the consumer guarantees in the Australian Consumer Law, which require due care and skill and cannot be contracted out of. The Building Act sets a 10 year outer limit on building actions.
What is covered, by whom, and for how long
This is general information about how the Victorian framework fits together, not legal advice on your specific job. Where a threshold or a time limit matters to your situation, confirm the current figure with Consumer Affairs Victoria or the Victorian Building Authority before you act on it.
| Cover | Who provides it | How long | What it actually covers | What it does not |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Material and product warranty | The quarry, recycler or pipe manufacturer, through your contractor | Product specification at time of supply. There is no life warranty on rock. | The product meeting its published grading, strength and classification | Anything to do with how it was placed, compacted or drained |
| Workmanship warranty | Your earthworks contractor, in writing on the quote | Commonly 12 months, some give 24 on compaction | Levels out of the stated tolerance, settlement beyond the stated allowance, trench collapse, damage caused by the work | Normal backfill settlement, seasonal clay movement, damage caused by later trades |
| Implied warranties, Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 (Vic) | Whoever carries out domestic building work | They run with the work and can be enforced by later owners | Suitable materials, good and workmanlike performance, compliance with the law and the plans, fitness for the stated purpose | Work that is not domestic building work, such as a purely commercial or civil site |
| Consumer guarantees, Australian Consumer Law | Every supplier of services in Australia | A reasonable period judged by the nature of the work. There is no fixed number of years. | Due care and skill, fitness for the purpose you told them about, delivery within a reasonable time | It cannot be excluded by any contract term, but it does not cover you changing your mind |
| Domestic building insurance | The registered builder’s insurer. Required for domestic building work where the contract price is over $16,000. | As set out in the policy, triggered only in defined circumstances | Incomplete or defective work where the builder has died, disappeared or become insolvent | It is a last resort, not a first call warranty. A solvent, contactable contractor is your first call. |
| Building Act 1993 (Vic) limitation | The law itself | 10 years from the occupancy permit or the final inspection certificate | The outer limit for bringing a building action in Victoria | Nothing survives past it, however genuine the defect |
| Contract limitation period | Limitation of Actions Act 1958 (Vic) | Generally six years for a breach of contract claim | Your right to sue on the contract itself | It runs from the breach, not from when you noticed it. Do not sit on a problem. |
| Public liability insurance | The contractor’s insurer. Ask for the certificate of currency. | The current policy period, so check the dates | Damage to your property, the neighbour’s property, and services struck during the work | Defective workmanship. That is a warranty question, not an insurance one. |
Escalation steps in order, with realistic timeframes
| Step | Timeframe | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Record it | Day 0 to 2 | Photograph with something for scale, measure the deviation in millimetres, note the date and the weather. Do not fix it yourself yet. |
| 2. Phone, then confirm in writing | Day 0 to 7 | Call the contractor and follow up the same day by email so the date is provable. Most jobs end here. |
| 3. Written defect notice | Within 14 days | Formal notice with address, work date, invoice number, measured defect, photos, the quote line or standard it breaches, the remedy you want and a 21 to 28 day deadline. |
| 4. Give access to inspect and rectify | 21 to 28 days | Let them on site. Refusing reasonable access weakens your position at every later step. |
| 5. Letter of demand | 14 days after the deadline passes | State the breach, the amount or the remedy, and the next step you will take. Keep it factual. |
| 6. Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria | Allow one to three months | Free conciliation. For domestic building disputes you generally must go here before VCAT. They can issue a dispute resolution order. |
| 7. Consumer Affairs Victoria | Parallel to step 6 | For Australian Consumer Law complaints that sit outside the domestic building framework. |
| 8. VCAT Building and Property List | Months, not weeks | Application fees scale with the amount claimed. Bring the paperwork from step 1 onwards. An independent expert report carries real weight here. |
Steps 1 to 3 resolve the overwhelming majority of earthworks complaints. The paperwork you gather on day one is what makes every later step work.
Worried about a job that has already gone wrong?
We will come and look at it and tell you honestly whether it is a defect, settlement or something nobody could have prevented.
How the Victorian framework actually applies to a dig
Excavation sits in an awkward spot. Plumbers and electricians in Victoria hold trade licences you can look up. Earthmovers do not: there is no excavation licence in this state. What a legitimate operator carries instead is machine competency, a safe work method statement for high risk construction work, which includes trenches deeper than 1.5 metres under the Victorian occupational health and safety framework, current public liability cover and WorkCover. Registration with the Victorian Building Authority attaches to domestic building work over $10,000, and a written major domestic building contract is required in Victoria for domestic building work above that same $10,000 mark. That is why earthworks is usually either engaged directly by you as a discrete service, or subcontracted by a registered builder who carries the registration and the domestic building insurance for the whole build.
The practical consequence is that your protection comes mostly from the contract and the Australian Consumer Law rather than from a licence you can check on a register. Which puts the weight on the written scope, and that is not a bad thing, because a good scope is enforceable and a licence number is not.
What to keep, and for how long
- The written quote, with inclusions and exclusions spelled out. This is the single most useful document in any dispute.
- The signed contract, and every variation agreed in writing. A text message counts. A conversation does not.
- Before You Dig Australia plans and the date they were lodged.
- Compaction test results if the job had them, and the level survey or the recorded levels if it did not.
- Dump dockets, so you can show where the spoil went and that the volume matches what was invoiced.
- The tax invoice with the ABN, and the certificate of currency for public liability.
- Dated photographs before, during and after. Take more than you think you need, and include something for scale.
Keep the lot for at least 10 years, because that is the outer limit for a building action in Victoria and because the next owner of the house may ask for it.
Defect or fair wear: how to tell the difference
This is where most arguments start, so here is the honest line as we would draw it on Casey ground.
Normal, not a defect. Between 25mm and 75mm of settlement over a backfilled service trench in the first 12 months, particularly after the first wet winter. Hairline cracking of a concrete surface, which is a concrete matter and not an earthworks one. Seasonal movement of 30mm to 50mm on reactive Class M to H1 clay through Hallam, Endeavour Hills and Hampton Park, which is the ground doing exactly what that ground does every year. Some minor rutting on a temporary construction access track. A topsoil stockpile that has slumped after rain.
A defect, and worth pursuing. A pad out of level by more than about 50mm against the design when it was signed off at plus or minus 25mm. A trench line that has slumped 150mm or more, or that keeps sinking after being topped up twice. A sub-base that ruts under an ordinary car in its first year. Fill placed in one deep lift rather than the specified lifts, where the evidence is a firm crust over soft material. Water ponding against the house because the fall was graded the wrong way. Spoil invoiced but never removed. Damage to a fence, a crossover or a neighbour’s wall, which is a public liability matter rather than a warranty one.
Our page on backfill settlement and aftercare goes into the timelines and what topping up should look like, and the signs of bad earthworks covers what to look for from ground level.
The genuinely honest part: sometimes nobody is liable
Not every bad outcome is somebody’s fault. An unforeseen rock shelf 800mm down that no bore log picked up is a variation, not a defect. A service that was not on the Before You Dig plans, was not detectable by the usual means, and was struck despite reasonable care is a shared problem, and how it is handled should have been agreed in the contract before the machine turned up. A pad that heaves after an unusually wet winter on Class H1 clay may be within the range the geotechnical report predicted. And if a slab cracks four years after a properly tested pad was handed over, the earthworks is often the first thing blamed and the last thing responsible.
Saying this plainly up front is not a way of ducking responsibility. It is the reason we write exclusions into quotes in plain English, take photographs at every stage and hand over dockets and levels: so that when something does go wrong there is a factual record to argue from instead of two memories.
Most disputes are settled by the scope, not the warranty
In our experience nearly every earthworks dispute traces back to a quote that did not say enough. A good scope makes the warranty almost unnecessary, because there is nothing left to disagree about. Six things a scope should state:
- The finished level and the tolerance, in millimetres, and what it is measured against.
- The material by name, the compacted depth and the number of lifts.
- The volume of spoil leaving the site, the rate, and who holds the dockets.
- What is excluded: rock, contaminated soil, retaining, concreting, landscaping, reinstatement.
- How variations are priced and approved, and that nothing extra gets done without written approval.
- The warranty period and exactly what it covers, including the settlement allowance.
If you are comparing quotes, the one with these six items is worth paying a little more for, even if the number at the bottom is higher. Our budget guide covers what a suspiciously cheap quote has left out, and the 2026 pricing guide shows the rates each of those line items should be priced at. If you want to know who is standing behind the work on our jobs, that is on the about page, and the insurance position on service strikes is set out on the service strike page. Before the job starts, the day by day guide tells you what a properly run site looks like.
Warranty and dispute questions
Do excavation contractors need a licence in Victoria?
How long is an earthworks workmanship warranty in Victoria?
Is trench settlement a defect or fair wear?
What should a defect notice actually say?
Where do I go if the contractor will not fix it?
What paperwork should I keep after an earthworks job?
Get a scope you could actually enforce
Every quote we send states the levels, the tolerance, the material, the lifts, the spoil volume, the exclusions and the warranty period. Usually back within one business day.
Second opinion on an earthworks job, free
Across Berwick, Cranbourne, Narre Warren, Hampton Park and Endeavour Hills. We will tell you if it is fine, even when that means no work for us.