Owner builder signs

The honest answer is: often not, and we would rather say so than sell you a board you do not need. The site signage rule most people have in mind is the one in the NSW Home Building Regulation, and it applies to a licensed contractor doing residential building work — it is the rule that puts a licence number and the words “licensed contractor” on a sign. An owner-builder working under a permit from NSW Fair Trading is not a licensed contractor doing that work, and that particular obligation is not yours.

Three things can still put a board at your front fence.

A condition of your consent. Councils frequently attach a site-identification condition to a development consent or CDC — a board showing who is building, a contact number for complaints, and permitted work hours. That condition is the most common reason an owner-builder orders this sign, and it is worth reading your consent before you order, because the condition usually says exactly what has to be on the board.

The safety duty on a larger job. If the construction work costs $250,000 or more and you have not engaged someone else as principal contractor, then under clause 308 of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017 — section 308 of the Queensland regulation, which is the same clause — the principal contractor must display name and contact numbers including an after-hours number, visible from outside the site. On a job that size, the principal contractor sign is the board you want, not this one, because it carries the after-hours number that clause asks for.

Because it is useful. A board with a name and a number on it answers the neighbour, the delivery driver and the inspector without anyone having to knock, which on a site with no site office is worth the fifty dollars on its own.

This page is general orientation, not advice. Read your own consent conditions, and confirm your position with NSW Fair Trading or the QBCC before relying on anything here.

The preview on this page shows the words at the sign’s proportions. Once the order is in, we set the print file from what you typed and send a proof link that opens on your phone. Check every digit of the permit number, and send it back if anything is wrong. Nothing goes to press until you approve it.

If it comes back wrong against an approved proof, that is on us. If it matches the proof you approved, it is not — which is why the proof is worth two minutes of your time.