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From 1 July 2026, Home Warranty insurance applies after a major domestic building contract when the work is over $20,000 on a home of three storeys or less. A Melbourne re-roof in that band should arrive with a notice of cover. Roof Revival Melbourne puts that paper in the scope conversation. This explains the public scheme.
Two numbers get mixed up on Melbourne roof jobs, and they are not the same test. Most domestic building work worth more than $10,000 needs a major domestic building contract in writing. Home Warranty insurance is the next test. From 1 July 2026 the builder arranges that cover after the contract is signed when the work is worth more than $20,000 and the home is three storeys or less. You should receive a notice of cover. If it does not arrive, Consumer Affairs Victoria tells owners to check with the Building and Plumbing Commission.
Before 1 July 2026 the older product was domestic building insurance, still called builders warranty insurance on a lot of certificates. That cover was required above $16,000. It was last-resort cover: it responded when the builder died, disappeared, or became insolvent. Home Warranty is a first-resort scheme. It can respond to incomplete, faulty, or non-compliant work when the builder cannot or will not fix it after you have asked. A contract signed on one side of that date is not the same policy as a contract signed on the other.
Roof Revival Melbourne does not publish a licence number on this page, and this article is general information about the public scheme. It is not a statement of registration, and it is not a substitute for the Consumer Affairs guide or advice on your own contract. The practical point for a re-roof is simple. Ask which contract you are signing, which date it is signed, and where the notice of cover will come from.
Home Warranty insurance, as Consumer Affairs describes it, includes cover for repair costs up to $400,000, with structural faults covered for six years and non-structural faults for two years. It can include a portion of the deposit, and accommodation, removal, and storage costs if delays or faulty work push you out of the house. Those periods belong to the insurance scheme. They are not a workmanship promise invented for a brochure.
The older domestic building insurance, on policies people still hold, covered repair costs up to $300,000 on the same six-year structural and two-year non-structural split, and it paid in the insolvency, death, and disappearance cases. Some later policies also responded when the builder ignored a final VCAT or court order. If your roof was replaced in 2024, you are reading a different certificate from a job signed in spring 2026. Keep the certificate with the contract. The roof will outlast the email thread.
Insurance is the backstop. The first obligation is still the builder finishing the work and repairing defects. Calling the insurer on week two, before anyone has been asked to come back, skips the step the scheme expects. Photograph the defect, write to the company named on the contract, and keep the reply. The insurance conversation starts when that path has failed, or when the builder cannot be found.
A Melbourne re-roof on a normal house is commonly planned from about $20,000 before access, solar, asbestos process, or a complex roof pushes it further. That planning band already sits on the Home Warranty threshold. A short repair, a valley, or a ridge run often sits under it. The suburb does not decide. Toorak and Berwick can both land on either side. The contract price decides.
The work this article is about is roof replacement in Melbourne. If the quote is a full strip and a new lid, ask for the major contract and the insurance path before you pay a deposit. If the quote is a local repair well under the threshold, do not expect a Home Warranty certificate to appear, and do not treat its absence as a scandal. Expect a written scope anyway. Small jobs still leak when nobody wrote down the bay.
A coat-only invoice can sit in a different bucket again. Victorian rules exclude some single-trade contracts, and painting is one of the trades named when the contract is for that work alone. A re-roof is not a paint contract. A restore that includes re-bedding, tile replacement, and building work is not a colour sample. If someone offers to “do the roof” for a price over $20,000 and the paper says painting, read the inclusions before you assume you hold Home Warranty. Consumer Affairs publishes the list. Use that list, not a salesperson’s summary.
On a major domestic building contract the builder is expected to be registered in the right class, and you should be given the Domestic Building Consumer Guide before you sign. The contract names the parties, the address, the price, and the work. A text message that says “roof, as discussed” is not that document. The deposit limits sit in the Domestic Building Contracts Act: check the current Consumer Affairs page before you transfer more than the Act allows. Paying the whole job in cash to “keep it simple” is how a defect becomes a story with no respondent.
After signing, wait for the notice of cover when the price requires Home Warranty. Match the address. Match the price. If the notice never comes, that is a phone call to make before the strip starts, not after the company has gone quiet. For contracts still on the older domestic building insurance, owners were told to hold the policy and certificate, and to check the policy number against the property, before paying the deposit. Same habit, different form.
Progress claims should match stages you can see. A re-roof is not a new house, so the stages will not look like slab, frame, and lock-up. They should still be written. Strip complete. New roof fixed and weathered. Flashings, valleys, and gutters as listed. Handover. A claim for “materials” on day one, with no schedule, is a reason to pause.
Home Warranty does not choose the tile, the Colorbond colour, or whether the roof should have been restored instead of replaced. It does not inspect the ridges for you. It does not turn a thin scope into a full one. If the contract never mentioned valleys, the argument later is about what was agreed, not about a magic top-up. Read the scope on the same day you read the insurance line.
It also does not cover every argument between neighbours, and it is not a maintenance plan. A gutter full of leaves three years later is housekeeping. A lap that was never screwed, or a flashing left open at handover, is a defect conversation. Keep those apart when you write the email, because a messy complaint is easy to park.
Work under the threshold is not “unprotected” in the sense that the builder owes you nothing. You still have the contract, the photos, and the ordinary right to have the agreed work done properly. You do not have this particular insurance certificate. Know which one you bought.
If you think the builder is insolvent, Consumer Affairs tells owners to get legal advice and to contact the insurer, and to be careful about paying subcontractors or ending the contract before that advice. A company in administration may still be trading. ASIC and AFSA are the registers, depending on whether you contracted with a company or a sole trader. The Building Information Line is the public path Consumer Affairs publishes for that moment. Use it. Do not invent a rescue by hiring the same subcontractors in cash and hoping the insurance will reimburse the experiment.
Claims on the older scheme had a time limit tied to when you learned of the insolvency. Home Warranty has its own claim path through the Building and Plumbing Commission. The detail lives on the notice of cover and the Commission’s pages. Keep both. A roof file with the contract, the scope, the photos, and the notice is a short folder. It is the folder that matters if the company vanishes in month four.
On a replacement we talk about contract, price, and insurance in the same conversation as squares, access, and disposal. We do not slide a large re-roof through as a weekend cash job. We also do not pretend a $3,000 repair needs a Home Warranty certificate to be a real job. The note on roofing jobs over $10,000 is the companion piece on written contracts. This page is the insurance piece. Read both, then read your quote.
Bring the other quote if you have one. If it is thousands lower and silent on who the contracting party is, the silence is the finding. Planning bands for replacement sit in the roof replacement cost guide. The band is not the invoice, and it is not a promise that your job sits under or over $20,000. The signed price is the test.
Send suburb, storeys and two roof photos. Roof Revival Melbourne — 0426 516 883 · info@roofrevivalmelbourne.com.au
