In NSW, Queensland, the ACT and the Northern Territory, home warranty cover is drawn at three storeys, and Victoria’s scheme leaves out buildings of more than three storeys that hold more than 2 homes. What counts as a storey is not the same everywhere: car parks, basements and separate wings are each treated in their own way.
General informationGeneral information, not insurance or legal advice about any building. Whether a particular building is covered is a question for the scheme itself: icare in NSW, the Building and Plumbing Commission in Victoria, the QBCC in Queensland, ACT Planning and NT.GOV.AU.
1Where each place draws the line
NSW Up to 3 storeys high
The Home Building Compensation scheme reaches new houses, and multi-unit residential buildings no taller than 3 storeys; a multi-unit building above that height has no cover.
VIC More than three storeys, and more than 2 homes
The Building and Plumbing Commission gives this as an example of an exclusion from Home Warranty: residential buildings of more than three storeys that contain more than 2 homes. The example needs both: the height and the number of homes. The Commission adds that other exclusions apply, so a building outside this example is not, by that fact alone, covered.
QLD More than 3 storeys, less one car park storey
Building work in or for a multiple dwelling of more than three storeys is not residential construction work, so the Queensland Home Warranty Scheme cannot insure it; one storey is left out of the count if it is mainly a car park. Mixed residential and commercial buildings are not insurable either: the QBCC’s example is two storeys of shops under one storey of homes.
ACT No more than 3 storeys at any point
The ACT’s Building Act 2004 defines an insurable residential building as a class 1 or class 2 residential building that “has no more than 3 storeys at any point, excluding any storey used exclusively for parking”. The same part of the Act says a storey does not include one below the ground storey.
NT Up to three storeys, parking excluded
The Northern Territory’s residential building cover reaches duplexes, units in complexes up to three storeys high (an undercroft or underground parking level is left out of that height), and work that extends or renovates those buildings.
The other three give no storey count on the pages used here. Western Australia ties home indemnity insurance to residential building work over $20,000, and its fact sheet lists multi-storey multi-unit developments, as the regulations define them, among the work that needs no cover. South Australia ties building indemnity insurance to domestic building work of $20,000 or more that needs council approval. Tasmania’s consumer building page sets out the statutory warranties a building contractor must give, which the first guide on this street covers.
2Counting the storeys
A car park on the ground floor
Queensland gives the most exact test. Its regulation leaves one storey out of the count if more than 50% of the floor area of at least one storey is designed to accommodate motor vehicles. The QBCC’s page turns that into a sum: measure the area of the car park within the building’s footprint, including lanes, ramps and driveways, divide it by the area of the whole storey and multiply by 100. The car park is counted as a storey if the answer is 50% or less, and not counted if it is more.
Worked example (illustrative figures)Two buildings each have three storeys of homes above a ground storey of 700 square metres.
In the first, the parking bays and driveway take 420 square metres: 420 ÷ 700 × 100 = 60%. That is more than 50%, so the car park is not counted and the building counts as three storeys. In the second, they take 280 square metres: 280 ÷ 700 × 100 = 40%. The car park is counted, the building counts as four storeys, and by the QBCC’s test it falls outside the scheme.
Two wings under one roofline
The ACT’s Act works through buildings with wings. Where a three-storey wing and a six-storey wing stand structurally apart, the three-storey wing is insurable and the six-storey wing is not. Where the wings depend on each other, the lower three storeys of the taller wing count with the shorter one, because a fault in them could put both wings at risk, while the storeys above, which stand on their own, are outside.
Shops below, homes above
The ACT also asks what a building is mainly used for. Its example is a building with shops on the ground storey and hotel rooms above: it is not a residential building at all, because it is not mainly for private residential use.
3What reaches the taller buildings
Above the line the insurance scheme no longer applies. NSW and the ACT set out what reaches those buildings instead.
In NSW, every piece of residential building work carries a statutory warranty, however tall the building. For residential apartment buildings of 4 storeys or higher under contracts made on or after 1 January 2018, the developer lodges a building defects bond of 2% of the contract price before applying for an occupation certificate, and appoints a building inspector to report on defects; if the developer leaves them unfixed, the bond can pay for the repairs. The Building Commission’s powers over serious defects in class 2 apartment buildings can be used for up to 10 years after a building is completed.
In the ACT, the Property Developers Act 2024 looks at projects by number of homes rather than height. It reaches residential buildings in projects of 3 or more dwellings, and lets the construction occupations registrar issue rectification orders for serious defects up to 10 years after building work is finished, for projects given development approval on or after 11 July 2024. The registrar considers whether a project carries a decennial liability policy before using those powers, but the policy is not compulsory.