Context
Before you pay your builder’s balance of the deposit, builders typically have their certifier assess your land to identify factors that could affect construction costs. This process is called pre-lodgement and occurs before your plans are submitted for building approval—even before you receive your first cost estimate.
But wouldn’t it be great to know what to look for before you’re contractually tied to a builder?
Pre-lodgement involves requesting a building certifier to conduct preliminary checks on your site. These checks identify local government overlays, council requirements, or encumbrances that might impact your property or become conditions of your building approval.
In this post, we’ll explain how you can perform pre-lodgement checks at any time and where to find the necessary information.
Real Life Example
We’ve created a handy checklist to help you evaluate potential sites as part of your research. You can use this checklist before or after purchasing land to conduct your own pre-lodgement investigation.
Don’t let the title “Before Buying Land” throw you off—the key is to assess the land before starting your design process. This way, you can identify any factors that need to be incorporated into your build.
The checklist is designed to help you understand what impacts your site, ensuring proper planning before design work begins and before you’re locked into a building contract.
Here are the five main sections of the checklist:
- Location
- Zoning and Services
- Site, Soil & Substrata
- Overlays to Search
- Noise
A Cautionary Tale
During my time building houses, I encountered situations where critical details—like a site’s proximity to a local airport or flight path—were overlooked during the contract management phase.
This oversight meant we had to bring in an acoustic engineer mid-construction to assess the situation. Following their recommendations, we had to adjust elements like window glazing, door insulation, and even consider adding extra ceiling insulation for noise control.
At one point, we were close to removing the gyprock (plasterboard) because we feared the trusses needed strengthening to support a double layer of gyprock for better noise insulation. It was a nerve-wracking experience—one you’d want to avoid at all costs.
All of this could have been prevented with a thorough pre-construction review of the overlays affecting the property.
A much better way to do this well before construction starts!
This is where having a checklist and using it at the right time during the construction process is super important.
Check out our blog post below on our C1 checklist, join as a free member, sign in then visit the Checklist link from the main navigation menu to download.
Anthony Painter
Read our post on this here, sign up as a free
Practical Tools
Some checklist items require you to physically inspect the site, while others can be researched online through your local council’s website. Additionally, some factors—like soil conditions and contours—can only be assessed once you’ve conducted a soil test.
If you’ve purchased land in a new estate development, you may already have some of the necessary information. Typically, you should receive (or request) the following documents:
- Disclosure Plan or Survey Plan
- Sewer As-Constructed Plans (As Cons)
- Stormwater As Cons
- Cold Water As Cons
- Plan of Development (POD)
Your Local Council is a Goldmine of Information
When I was building houses on the Gold Coast in Queensland, I relied heavily on the Gold Coast City Council website. Most local councils have similar tools, as they all have planning and development departments.
For example, the Gold Coast City Council’s Mapping Search tool provides a wealth of information, including:
- SIS Location Diagram (services)
- Infrastructure details
- Flood information
- Landslide hazard mapping
- Bushfire hazard mapping
You can also check the city plan and overlays using tools like: Gold Coast City Plan
This tool provides details on:
- Acid sulphate soils
- Airport/air noise
- Erosion areas and environmental overlays
Find Out More
Here are some examples of what the Developer supplied documentation looks like:
Anthony Painter
Items 1 through 7 on this link shows examples - https://www.constructor.net.au/plans/
We’ve also written a short blog post on:
Anthony Painter
What's Next?
At Constructor, we’re passionate about empowering homeowners with better information so you know what to expect during construction—before it happens.
As part of this mission, we’re creating a detailed guide that covers everything from buying land to the end of your builder’s warranty (six years and six months after construction).
This guide will include checklists for each stage of the process, helping you stay informed about what to check and when. While these checklists aren’t a substitute for professional inspections, they’ll keep you informed about critical factors at every stage. We’ll also include images to make things clearer.
Admittedly, this guide is taking longer to complete than we initially hoped. However, we’re using this time to ensure it’s as thorough and helpful as possible.
What do you think?
If you have feedback, please let us know. We are always improving what we do and know its a process, so your feedback is valued and incorporated.
Thank you for reading, and happy building!
Anthony
