Unapproved decks, sheds and pools: buying and selling older Queensland homes

What counts as unapproved work

Most building work in Queensland requires building approval from a building certifier, and some also requires development approval from the council. Work done without the necessary approval, or work that was approved but never received a final certificate, is unapproved building work — and both categories cause problems, though the second is usually easier to fix.

The items we see most often on older coastal homes are: decks and pergolas, enclosing under-house areas to create habitable rooms, carports and garages, patio roofs and awnings, garden sheds over the exempt size, retaining walls above one metre, and swimming pools and pool fencing.

Some minor work is genuinely exempt. A small garden shed under the prescribed size on a standard lot generally does not need approval. But the assumption that 'you don't need approval for a deck' is wrong, and it is repeated constantly.

Why it matters to a buyer

Unapproved work follows the land, not the person who built it. Once you own the property, the exposure is yours, whoever poured the slab.

• Enforcement. The council can issue a show cause notice and then an enforcement notice requiring the work to be certified, altered or demolished at the owner's cost. It does not matter that the previous owner built it.
• Insurance. Insurers can decline or reduce a claim for damage to or caused by unapproved, non-compliant structures. A deck that collapses, or a fire that starts in an unapproved enclosed area, is exactly where a claim gets tested.
• Finance and valuation. Valuers routinely exclude unapproved improvements from the valuation, which can reduce the valuation below the contract price and disturb the loan.
• Resale. The problem does not go away — you inherit it and you disclose or discover it again when you sell, usually under time pressure.
• Habitable rooms. An enclosed under-house area used as a bedroom is the highest risk of all, because ceiling heights, ventilation, light, egress and fire separation for habitable rooms are strict and older conversions rarely meet them.

Pools and pool fencing — a category of their own

Queensland has a specific regime for swimming pools. Regulated pools must be registered on the state pool safety register and must comply with the pool safety standard. On a sale, the seller must either give the buyer a pool safety certificate before settlement, or give a notice of no pool safety certificate before the contract is entered into.

Where a notice of no pool safety certificate is given, the buyer must obtain a certificate within ninety days of settlement — at the buyer's cost. Bringing an old fence up to the current standard can be several thousand dollars, and an unapproved pool structure itself is a much larger problem again.

Failing to give the certificate or the notice carries penalties and gives the buyer rights. It is one of the more common seller mistakes in Queensland conveyancing, and it is completely avoidable.

The seller's position under the disclosure regime

Since 1 August 2025, Queensland sellers must give a seller disclosure statement and prescribed certificates to the buyer before the contract is signed. The statement covers matters including show cause and enforcement notices and pool safety compliance.

That regime does not create a general obligation to volunteer that the deck was built by a friend in 1998. But a seller who answers a direct question inaccurately, or who conceals a known enforcement notice, faces a very different problem — including termination rights and misleading conduct exposure that survives settlement.

In practice the strongest position for a seller is to deal with it before listing. Options are to obtain a building approval for existing work through a private certifier, to remove the structure, or to price and disclose the issue openly and negotiate it once rather than three times.

How it is fixed

Unapproved work is usually fixable, and it is cheaper to fix before a contract is signed than during one.

• Start with a building records search with the council to see what was actually approved and when. This is the single most useful search on an older Queensland house and it is inexpensive.
• Engage a private building certifier to assess whether the existing work can be certified. Where it complies structurally, an approval for existing building work can often be obtained.
• Where it does not comply, the work is either altered to comply or removed. An engineer's report is usually needed for decks, retaining walls and any structural change.
• For pools, obtain a pool safety inspection early. Inspectors will give a list of defects and most are fixable within the certificate period.
• Where the sale must proceed before the issue is resolved, deal with it in the contract — a price adjustment, a retention held at settlement, or a special condition requiring rectification before settlement.

What we do on these files

Our free pre-signing contract review is where an unapproved structure gets caught. On older Caloundra and bayside homes we look at the building records position before you are committed, not after.

• Building records and council searches ordered as part of the standard search package on older dwellings.
• Special conditions for approval of existing work, retentions or price adjustment where an issue emerges after signing.
• Pool safety certificate and notice compliance confirmed on every contract with a regulated pool — seller side and buyer side.
• For sellers, a pre-listing review so the disclosure statement is accurate and the negotiation happens once.

Unapproved building work in Queensland — common questions