Pre-Purchase Pool Inspection
Buying a home with a pool or spa? Know whether the barrier is compliant, and what it'll cost to fix, before you sign.
- Priced per property
- Form 23 within 48 hours
- Qualified inspector (IN-PS 100069)
In plain English
What a pre-purchase inspection tells you
A standard building inspection barely looks at the pool barrier. I check it properly, so you know before you buy whether the fence, gate and non-climb zone are compliant, and what it will cost to fix if they're not.
That means no nasty surprise after settlement, when getting a Form 23 becomes your problem. I work to your purchase timeline and give you a clear, plain-English report you can act on.
- Priced per property
- fast turnaround to suit your settlement
How it works
Fitted around your settlement
Timing is usually the tight part, so we work backward from your dates.
-
Tell me your dates
When do you need to commit? Everything else works back from that.
-
I inspect the barrier
The fence, the gate, the non-climbable zones, and any wall, window or door forming part of the barrier.
-
You get the report
What is compliant, what is not, and what it would realistically take to fix, in plain English.
-
You act before you sign
Raise it with the vendor, factor it into your offer, or stop worrying about it.
The gap this fills
A building and pest report notes that a pool exists and moves on. Barrier compliance is a separate technical standard with its own measurements.
What turns up
What I usually find, and what it costs you
The barriers I see fail are rarely dramatic. Individually each item is minor. Together, on a property you have just committed to, they are a weekend and a few hundred dollars you had not planned for.
- A gate that no longer latches Sagging hinges or a tired closer. Cheap to fix, but it is a fail until it is done.
- Planting inside the non-climb zone A garden bed or shrub built up within 900mm of the barrier turns a compliant fence into a non-compliant one.
- A boundary fence under 1.8m Common where a fence has settled, or where the ground is higher on one side.
- A door opening into the pool area The expensive one. Direct access from a building has not been allowed since 1 May 2010, and it is structural rather than a quick fix.
Worth being clear
This is for you, not for the vendor
The seller is still responsible for providing a current certificate at settlement. This inspection does not replace that, and it is not a structural report on the pool shell, the pump or the plumbing.
What it does is let you walk in knowing the real state of the barrier, rather than finding out once it is legally yours. If the answer is that everything is fine, you stop worrying about it. If it is not, you have something concrete and costed to raise before you sign.
Good to know