The Biggest Financial Decision Australians Make Without Legal Advice
The Biggest Financial Decision Most Australians Make… Without Any Legal Advice.”
Almost every person building a home:
- sees a mortgage broker,
- gets finance approval,
- gets building inspections,
- talks to an agent or gets bog standard conveyancing done for the land purchase,
- they sign hundreds of thousands or millions over but don’t get legal advice on building law and contracts…
…nobody should enter a building contract without specialist legal advice - and get a proper understanding about the building contract, the process, the pitfalls before construction starts.
That is really extraordinary.
Solicitors certificates are required for financial transactions and every interested party is consumed in not holding up the process.
But think about it, good advice supports good builders, good practices and means the uninformed owner becomes informed and disputes are less likely later.
Every week I see people who:
- paid deposits to the wrong entity;
- signed contracts with unregistered businesses;
- didn’t know who they were actually contracting with;
- didn’t understand cost increase clauses;
- assumed insurance existed when it didn’t;
- believed they had protections they simply didn’t have.
By the time they see a lawyer, the damage has already been done. They complain, seek redress and what they expect and the legal position are far apart.
The legal system then spends years trying to fix problems that could have been avoided with a couple of hours of advice before the contract was signed.
Perhaps we’ve focused so much on regulating what happens after things go wrong that we have forgotten about preventing them in the first place.
Maybe we should be asking a bigger question.
Should there be a mandatory solicitor’s certificate before anyone enters into a domestic building contract in Australia?
And ‘No’ this won’t stop building occurring, it will close the expectation vs reality gap and ensure builds can move forward more efficiently, people will know what an RBS does and doesn’t do and avoid disputes.
Not because lawyers need more work.
Owners deserve to understand the biggest financial commitment many of them will ever make.
Builders deserve to know that their customers know what is ahead and don’t debate irrelevant or unnecessary issues that invariably cause delays…
Would it prevent every dispute?
Of course not.
Would it prevent thousands?
Absoutely!
What do you think lawyers, homeowners, surveyors and builders?
This article is a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
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