Queensland
In QLD, the owner signs in writing. Then the work starts. In that order.
Queensland is the most prescriptive state in the country about variation paperwork: for regulated domestic building contracts, the legislation says the contractor must not start varied work before the owner agrees to it in writing — and specifies what the variation document must contain. Here's the machinery, minus the legalese.
Owner's written agreement first Formal contents listed in the Act Urgent work excepted
01 — Which law
Schedule 1B of the QBCC Act. Not the DBCA — that's gone.
Queensland's domestic building rules live in Schedule 1B of the Queensland Building and Construction Commission Act 1991. A common trap in forum advice: articles still cite the Domestic Building Contracts Act 2000 for variations. That Act was repealed in 2015 and its substance moved into the QBCC Act — if you're reading a variation rule numbered as a DBCA section, you're reading history.
The Schedule 1B regime applies to regulated contracts — domestic building work over $3,300, roughly the point where Queensland also requires a written contract at all. Below that, common sense still applies; above it, the statute does.
02 — The rule
Section 40: writing first, work second, penalty attached.
Give it to them in writing
The contractor must give the owner a copy of the variation in writing before five business days pass since you agreed — and before any varied work starts. There's a maximum penalty for skipping it.
Wait for written agreement
Section 40(5) is the one to memorise: the contractor must not start the varied work before the building owner agrees to the variation in writing. Verbal yes on site doesn't start the clock — the signature does.
The urgent-work exception
Work needed urgently — preventing damage, meeting safety requirements — has a defence where producing the written variation first genuinely wasn't practicable. Urgency is yours to prove, not to assume.
03 — The document
Section 41 lists what a compliant variation contains.
Legible
Readable by the person signing it — a scrawled note fails more disputes than it wins.
Describes the work
What's changing, specifically. “Extras as discussed” describes nothing.
Dated
The date the variation was requested, on the document.
Prices it, or prices the mechanism
Any change in contract price — or how the change will be worked out if it can't be fixed upfront.
Says when it's payable
When the increase is to be paid, or which progress payment a decrease comes off.
Signed by the contractor, with reasonable steps taken to have the owner sign too. And one commercial detail hiding in the legislation: where a variation increases the price, the contractor can't require the additional payment until the owner has initialled the variation document and the varied work has commenced.
04 — Making it easy
Compliance is now faster than non-compliance.
Everything section 41 asks for fits in one screen, and everything section 40 asks for is a link away. The paperwork was always the right answer; it just used to be the slow one.
Bias declared — this exact moment is what ScopeLock does: build the variation on your phone with every field section 41 wants, send the link, and the owner agrees in writing on their own phone before you touch the work. Signed, timestamped, filed as a PDF. Free under A$500. This page is general information, not legal advice — for a live dispute, talk to someone qualified.
Straight answers
Questions people actually ask.
Do variations need to be in writing in Queensland?
For regulated domestic building contracts — domestic building work over $3,300 — yes, and it's unusually explicit: Schedule 1B of the QBCC Act 1991 requires the contractor to give the owner the variation in writing and bars starting varied work until the owner agrees in writing. Formal content requirements are set out in section 41 of the Schedule.
Is the old Domestic Building Contracts Act 2000 still the law?
No — it was repealed on 1 July 2015 and the substance moved into Schedule 1B of the QBCC Act 1991. Guides still citing DBCA sections for today's variation rules are out of date; check the section numbers against the QBCC Act instead.
Can the owner verbally approve and let me start?
Not safely. Section 40(5) requires the owner's written agreement before varied work starts, and there's a penalty attached to the giving-in-writing requirement itself. A verbal approval followed by an invoice is precisely the argument the legislation was built to prevent.
What if the work is genuinely urgent?
Schedule 1B provides a defence where the work was urgently required and producing a written variation first wasn't reasonably practicable — think damage prevention, safety. It's a defence you'd need to prove after the fact, so use it for genuine emergencies only, and paper the variation as soon as practicable anyway.
Method
Where these answers came from.
Vendor screens and features are taken from each publisher's own website or help centre on the date shown. Nothing here is sponsored and no vendor has reviewed this page.
If something's changed, tell us and we'll fix it — an out-of-date guide is worse than none.
The next one's coming
The next “can you just” is already on its way.
Price it on your phone, they sign on theirs, you both keep the PDF. Under A$500 it costs you nothing, ever.
No card, no trial clock. Your customer doesn't need an account.