How it works
What happens when you check a builder.
Know Your Builder searches 16 official registers, courts and tribunals at once and puts the results in one report, with every finding linked to its source.
1. You tell us who the builder is
Enter the business name, ABN or ACN. If you search by name, we look it up on the Australian Business Register first and ask you to pick the right business when there’s more than one match. That matters: two businesses with similar names can have very different records.
You can also add a director’s name on the full search form. That lets us check the person behind the company, including other companies they’ve been involved with.
2. We search every source at the same time
Each register is searched directly from its official source, and you can watch them complete one by one. Most reports finish within a few minutes. A few registers are slow or briefly unavailable at times; when that happens the report says so rather than showing a false “nothing found”.
3. You get one report
Findings are summarised under five risks: insolvency and financial distress, late payment and subcontractor disputes, licensing and regulatory standing, legal proceedings, and corporate structure (including phoenix-company warning signs). Each finding links to the record it came from, so you can read the original yourself. We ask for your email address so we can send you a link to the report.
Sources
The 16 sources in every report
Builder licences and discipline
Whether the builder holds a current licence, its class and expiry, and any disciplinary action or compliance history recorded against it.
- NSW contractor licence register (Verify licence)
- Access Canberra builder licence register
- Access Canberra register of disciplinary actions
Good to know: Licence checks cover NSW and the ACT only in this release.
Business identity
That the ABN is active and matches the business you are dealing with, the company’s registration status, and other companies its directors are linked to.
- Australian Business Register (ABR)
- ASIC company register
- ASIC director company history
Good to know: Director history needs a director’s name, which you can add on the full search form.
Financial warning signs
Liquidation, administration and other insolvency notices, published tax-debt notices, and how long the business takes to pay its own suppliers.
- ASIC published notices: insolvency
- ASIC published notices: ATO tax debt
- Payment Times Reporting Register
Good to know: Payment times are only reported by large businesses, so most small builders won’t appear.
Regulator enforcement
Directors banned from managing companies, undertakings given to ASIC, and Fair Work Ombudsman enforcement outcomes.
- ASIC disqualified persons register
- ASIC court enforceable undertakings register
- Fair Work Ombudsman enforcement outcomes
Good to know: Records appear once the regulator publishes them, which can lag behind the event.
Courts and tribunals
Published judgments and tribunal decisions naming the business, including building disputes heard in NCAT and ACAT.
- Federal courts
- NSW courts and tribunals
- ACT courts and ACAT
Good to know: Only published decisions are searchable. Cases that settle or are still running may not appear.
Supply-chain statements
Whether the business has lodged a modern slavery statement.
- Modern Slavery Statements Register
Good to know: Only businesses with A$100 million or more in revenue must report.
What a report can’t tell you
- It only covers NSW and the ACT for licences and courts. If your builder works elsewhere, check the licence on your state’s register.
- Registers lag behind events. A liquidation or court decision can take days or weeks to be published.
- Not every dispute reaches a published decision. Cases that settle, or are still running, often don’t appear.
- It isn’t a credit check or a quality rating. A clean report means nothing was found in these sources on the day you searched.
Before you sign, also check the builder’s home building insurance, ask for references from recent clients, and have your contract reviewed.
About the people named in reports
Reports only contain information that government bodies, courts and tribunals have already published. We show each record as the source publishes it and don’t add our own judgement about any person. If you’re named in a report and something is wrong or out of date, our privacy policy explains how to ask us to review it.
Give your builder a once-over.
Free report. NSW and ACT builders.