Your rights · Western Australia

Paving warranties in WA: who covers what

Three separate protections stack on every Geraldton paving job. The paver maker warrants the unit, commonly 10 to 25 years against structural breakage. Your contractor should warrant the workmanship in writing, 12 months at an absolute minimum and 5 to 7 years from anyone serious. And the Australian Consumer Law guarantees sit over both, with no expiry date and no way to contract out of them.

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The framework

There is no paving licence in Western Australia.

That sentence surprises people, so it is worth being direct about it. Paving and landscaping are not licensed trades in this state. Anyone can print a card and call themselves a paver in Geraldton tomorrow. What you can verify instead is an ABN, a current certificate of currency for public liability insurance, which for this trade is commonly $10 million to $20 million of cover, and a written scope you can hold someone to. Building contractor registration and home indemnity insurance in WA attach to residential building work over $20,000 that needs a building permit, and a standalone paving contract usually is not that. So do not go looking for a licence number that does not exist. Go looking for the insurance certificate and the written scope.

Retaining is different. Under the Western Australian building regulations, a retaining wall over 500mm generally requires a building permit from the City of Greater Geraldton, and walls carrying a surcharge such as a driveway or a pool above them can need one at lower heights. Once a permit is involved the work becomes regulated building work: there is an engineer design, a permit authority, an inspection trail and a certificate at the end. That paperwork is not red tape, it is the evidence base for any later claim, and it is why the retaining wall permit page is worth reading before the first block is placed rather than after.

Underneath all of it sits the Australian Consumer Law, which applies to services and goods sold to consumers anywhere in the country. Services must be supplied with due care and skill, must be fit for the purpose you made known, and must be delivered within a reasonable time. Goods, meaning the pavers themselves, must be of acceptable quality. Those guarantees are automatic, they cannot be signed away in a contract, and no clause saying otherwise is worth anything.

What is covered, by whom, for how long.

Three different protections with three different owners. Most homeowners assume the contractor covers everything, and the split below is why an old claim can still succeed against the supplier.

Protection	Who owns it	What it actually covers	How long	What you must produce
Paver product warranty	The manufacturer, usually claimed through the supplier	Manufacturing defect and structural breakage of the unit. Fading, efflorescence and natural variation are normally excluded in writing.	Commonly 10 to 25 years. Read the actual document, not the brochure line.	Tax invoice, product name and batch, technical data sheet.
Sealer warranty	The sealer manufacturer, and the applicator for the application	Coating failure such as peeling or blushing. Not wear, and not salt damage to an unsealed area.	Typically 3 to 5 years, shorter within a kilometre of the surf.	Product name, date applied, number of coats, invoice.
Workmanship warranty	Your paving contractor	Base failure, settlement and dishing, lipping, incorrect falls, missing or failed edge restraint, joint failure, poor cutting.	12 months minimum. 5 to 7 years is the standard to insist on.	The written quote or invoice carrying the warranty term.
Consumer guarantees, services	The contractor, under Australian Consumer Law	Due care and skill, fitness for the purpose you made known, delivery in a reasonable time. Cannot be excluded by any contract clause.	No fixed expiry. A reasonable period judged on price, nature and what was promised.	Proof of purchase, plus evidence of what was promised.
Consumer guarantees, goods	The supplier first, then the manufacturer	Acceptable quality, matching the description and any sample you were shown.	A reasonable period given the price and expected life of the goods.	Receipt, the sample or display reference, photographs.
Building service complaint	The WA Building Commissioner, within the state industry regulator	Regulated building work only, which for us means a permitted retaining wall rather than plain paving. Can result in an order to remedy.	Generally within 6 years of completion of the building work.	Building permit, engineer design, contract, photographs, correspondence.
Home indemnity insurance	The builder insurer, for residential building work over $20,000	Only where the builder has died, disappeared or become insolvent. Rarely reaches a standalone paving contract.	Typically 6 years from completion, per the policy.	The policy certificate the builder gave you before work started.
Court claim	You, in contract or negligence	Loss caused by the breach, including the cost of having the work redone properly.	6 years from when the cause of action accrues, under the Limitation Act 2005 in WA.	Everything below, plus an independent report.

If it goes wrong, in this order.

Step	Who you deal with	Timeframe	Cost to you	What to expect
1. Photograph and phone	The contractor	The day you notice it	Free	Most genuine defects are fixed at this step without any of the rest of this table.
2. Written defect notice	The contractor, by email	Within a week. Allow 14 days to respond, 30 to attend.	Free	A timestamped record that starts the clock and matters later.
3. Final notice citing the consumer guarantees	The contractor, by email	21 to 28 days after step 2	Free	Name the guarantee you say was breached and set a final date.
4. Independent inspection and report	A building consultant or engineer	1 to 3 weeks to arrange in the Mid West	$400 to $900 plus travel	The document that turns your opinion into evidence. Worth it before any claim.
5. Consumer Protection conciliation	Consumer Protection, within the WA industry regulator	Several weeks from lodging	Free	Not binding, but a surprising number of disputes settle here.
6. Building service complaint	The WA Building Commissioner	Generally within 6 years of completion	A lodgement fee may apply	Only for regulated building work such as a permitted retaining wall. Can order remedy.
7. Magistrates Court	The court, minor case or general procedure	Within 6 years under the Limitation Act 2005	Filing fees, plus your report	Minor cases up to $10,000 with costs limited, general claims up to $75,000.
8. Insurance claim	The home indemnity insurer	Per the policy, typically 6 years	Free to lodge	Only where the work was residential building work over $20,000 and the builder has died, disappeared or become insolvent.

This is general information for Western Australian homeowners, not legal advice. Thresholds and processes change, so confirm the current position with Consumer Protection or the City of Greater Geraldton before you act on a large claim.

Get a quote with the warranty written on it.

Our quotes state the base depth, the paver grade, the jointing type and the workmanship warranty period, because a warranty you cannot read is a warranty you cannot use.

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Evidence

The nine documents to keep, and the two photographs.

A claim is won or lost on paperwork gathered before there was a dispute. Put all of this in one folder on the day the job finishes and you will never need it, which is rather the point.

The written quote, with the scope: base depth, road base tonnage, paver make and thickness, jointing type, edge restraint, falls.
Every variation, in writing, even the ones agreed verbally on site and confirmed by text afterwards.
Tax invoices and receipts, which establish the contract, the price and the completion date.
The paver technical data sheet and the manufacturer warranty document.
The sealer product name, the date applied and how many coats.
Delivery dockets showing the tonnage of crushed limestone road base that arrived.
The certificate of currency for public liability insurance, dated before the work started.
For retaining: the building permit, the engineer design and any inspection or completion paperwork.
All correspondence, kept as email rather than phone calls.

The two photographs matter more than any of it. Take one of the open excavation and one of the compacted base before the pavers go down, on your phone so they carry a date. Almost every serious paving dispute is an argument about what is under the surface, and those two images end that argument in about four seconds. Take a third of the edge haunch before it is backfilled if you want to be thorough.

Writing it up

What a defect notice should actually say.

Keep it short, factual and dated. No adjectives, no history of how disappointed you are, no threats. A notice that reads like a report is far harder to ignore than one that reads like a complaint. Include these eight things.

The date, your name and the property address.
The quote or invoice number and the date the work was completed.
A factual description of the defect: what it is, exactly where it is, and how much area is affected in square metres or lineal metres.
When you first noticed it, and whether it is getting worse.
Dated photographs, ideally with something for scale such as a tape or a coin.
What the quote or the relevant standard required, quoted from your own copy.
What you want done, and by when: 14 days to respond and 30 days to attend is reasonable and is the deadline most conciliators would consider fair.
A line stating that you rely on the consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law.

Send it by email, keep a copy, and do not authorise anyone else to touch the work while the notice is live. Getting a second contractor to fix it first is the most common way people accidentally destroy their own claim, because the evidence goes into a bin along with the old base.

Honest constraint

Defect, or fair wear? We will tell you either way.

Plenty of things that look wrong on new paving are not defects, and a contractor who pretends otherwise to keep the peace is doing you no favours. These are normal:

White efflorescence blooming on new concrete pavers in the first 12 to 18 months. It is free lime coming to the surface and it weathers off. Attacking it with strong acid can burn the pigmented face and turn a temporary look into a permanent one.
Joint sand dropping a few millimetres in the first 6 weeks as traffic and the first rain settle it. Top it up, do not lift it.
Lipping of about 2 to 3mm between adjacent units. Segmental paving is laid by hand from natural and manufactured units and a small step between neighbours is within normal tolerance.
Colour and texture variation in natural Geraldton limestone. It is stone, and the variation is the reason people choose it.
Gradual softening of colour in pigmented concrete pavers over 10 to 15 years under a Geraldton summer UV index that reaches 12 to 14. If permanent colour matters, that argument is made at specification time on the material choice page, not at warranty time.
A single paver cracked by a dropped jockey wheel, a skip bin or a delivery truck that was never in the contract.

These are defects, and we would replace or rebuild them without argument:

Water ponding on the surface, or any fall running back toward the house or the garage.
Pavers that rock underfoot, or a dished wheel track, both of which mean the base or the bedding has failed.
Edges creeping outward with open joints, which almost always means the concrete haunch is missing or discontinuous.
Multiple cracked units within the first year under ordinary domestic traffic.
Joints that were filled with loose washed sand when the quote said stabilised.
A retaining wall leaning, bulging or weeping at the base, which is urgent rather than annoying. Stop loading it and get it looked at.

The grey area is settlement over a service trench somebody else backfilled. If the water corporation or an electrician trenched across the area and the ground was not compacted in layers, the paving above it will drop, and that is not the pavers fault. We flag those trenches on the quote for exactly this reason. The sinking paving warning signs page walks through how to read what you are seeing before you write to anybody.

The honest note

Almost every dispute was avoidable at quote stage.

We have never seen a paving dispute that started with a clear written scope. They start with a one line quote that says paving to driveway, followed by two people remembering different conversations. If your quote contains the following, you have removed most of the risk before anyone digs.

Compacted base depth in millimetres, and the tonnage of crushed limestone road base.
Whether geotextile is included, and over what area.
Paver make, model, colour, thickness and, for clay near the coast, the salt attack resistance grade.
Jointing type, stated as stabilised or polymeric rather than just sand.
Edge restraint detail and the lineal metres of concrete haunch.
Falls, and where the water is going, including any soakwell connection.
Who removes the spoil and pays the tip fee.
The workmanship warranty period, in years, in writing.
Whether the total is GST inclusive, and the deposit, which should sit at or below the 6.5 per cent benchmark used for home building work in this state.

If you would like a sanity check on a quote you have already received from someone else, send it through. We will tell you what is missing from it without trying to win the job, because a homeowner who understands the scope is a better customer for everyone in this trade. Our budget page covers where a low quote usually saves its money, and how long paving lasts here sets the expectation your warranty is really measured against.

Get a price

Get a quote with the warranty in writing

Send your details and we will book a free on-site measure, then email a written quote that states the base depth, the paver grade, the jointing and the workmanship warranty period, normally within one business day.

Warranty questions from Geraldton homeowners.

How long should a paving warranty last in Western Australia?

Expect a written workmanship warranty of at least 12 months, and 5 to 7 years is what a competent paving contractor will put in writing for base failure and settlement. The paver itself usually carries a manufacturer warranty of 10 to 25 years against structural breakage, with fading and efflorescence excluded. Separately, the consumer guarantees in the Australian Consumer Law have no expiry date and cannot be contracted out of.

Do pavers need a licence in WA?

There is no paving or landscaping licence in Western Australia, so anyone can call themselves a paver. What you can verify is an ABN, a current certificate of currency for public liability insurance, commonly $10 million to $20 million, and for retaining work above the permit threshold, a building permit and an engineer design. Registration as a building contractor and home indemnity insurance apply to residential building work over $20,000, which a standalone paving contract usually is not.

Is a retaining wall covered differently to paving?

Yes. A retaining wall over 500mm in Western Australia generally needs a building permit from the City of Greater Geraldton, which makes it regulated building work with an engineer design and an inspection trail. That gives you an extra path: a building service complaint to the state Building Commissioner, generally available within 6 years of completion. Plain paving needs no permit, so your remedies there are the contract and the consumer guarantees.

What should a paving defect notice say?

The date, your address, the quote or invoice number, a factual description of what is wrong and where, how many square metres are affected, and dated photographs. Give a deadline: 14 days to respond and 30 days to attend is a reasonable standard. Say that you rely on the consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law, and send it by email so there is a timestamp.

What is not a paving defect?

White efflorescence on new concrete pavers in the first 12 to 18 months, joint sand settling a few millimetres in the first 6 weeks, lipping of 2 to 3mm between adjacent units, natural colour variation in stone, and gradual fading of pigmented concrete over 10 to 15 years under a summer UV index that reaches 12 to 14 here. Water ponding, pavers rocking underfoot, dishing in the wheel tracks and a fall running back toward the house are defects.

How long do I have to take a paving dispute further?

Six years is the practical outer limit in Western Australia. The Limitation Act 2005 gives 6 years to start a contract or negligence claim, and a building service complaint about regulated building work is generally available within 6 years of completion. The Magistrates Court hears minor cases up to $10,000 and general claims up to $75,000, but a claim is far easier to prove with photographs taken in the first month than with photographs taken in year five.

More reading: retaining walls, driveway paving, keeping paving in warranty condition, what happens on the day and the suburbs we cover.