Before you sign with anyone
How do you check a builder before you sign?Our licence, insurance and warranty — and the five checks to run on anyone
Credentials & assurance
R&Q Interiors’ licence, insurance and warranty.
We trade as R&Q Interiors - Home Additions, Extensions & Renovations. R&Q Interiors (R & Q Pty Ltd) has been building in Sydney since 2017 and holds NSW Builder Licence 378767C — ABN 99 620 764 829. Every project is delivered under a written building contract with defined payment stages, on either a fixed-price or a cost-plus basis.
We are a member of the Housing Industry Association (HIA), Australia’s peak residential building body.
Every project over $20,000 (including GST) carries insurance under the NSW Home Building Compensation Fund (HBCF), taken out before work starts and before we accept any money from you — including the deposit. That cover exists to protect you, not us: it compensates the homeowner for incomplete or defective work if a builder dies, disappears, becomes insolvent, or has their licence suspended for failing to comply with a money order.
Your work is also backed by the statutory warranty under NSW home building law — 6 years for major (structural) defects and 2 years for other work — with a defects-liability period following handover.
The five checks
Run these on every builder you are quoting.
Ask us for all of this — and ask the others. A builder who hesitates on any of these five is telling you something.
1. Look the licence up yourself
Search the licence number on the NSW public register and check three things: that it is current, that the class covers your work, and that the name on the licence matches the name that will be on your contract. That last one catches the most problems. Ours is 378767C, held by R & Q Pty Ltd.
2. Ask for the HBCF certificate before you pay a deposit
For residential work over $20,000 including GST, home building compensation cover must be in place before any money changes hands — including the deposit. Ask to see the certificate of insurance for your specific job, not a general statement that the builder is insured.
3. Ask for public liability and workers compensation
Two separate certificates of currency, both in the name of the entity on your contract. Check the expiry dates cover your build.
4. Read the exclusions, not the headline number
The cheapest quote is usually the one with the most left out. Compare the exclusions list, the provisional sums and the prime cost allowances — an allowance set low makes a quote look thousands cheaper until the real product is chosen. Ask each builder what happens to the price when a PC item is exceeded.
5. Ask to visit a finished job — or a live site
Photographs are curated. A site visit is not. Ask to see something finished, and ask to see something under way, which tells you how the builder actually runs a site.
Most of what makes these checks work is written into NSW home building law — the 10% deposit cap, the written-contract threshold, the cooling-off period and the statutory warranty. Those rules, with their government sources, are set out in full on a separate page.