Unregistered builder fined $70,000 over a dangerous deck
A homeowner in Belgrave put up a Facebook post asking about work on a carport and pergola. The man who answered was not a registered builder, told her no building permit was needed, and asked for a deposit ten times the legal maximum. She paid $43,000. The council later confirmed the decking was dangerous and should not be used. Site Inspections wrote the independent inspection report in this matter, and we referred it to the regulator.
01What the court decided
Four charges, found guilty on all of them, convicted and fined $70,000. And a separate order for damages that has still not been paid.
Joshua Mionnet, 33, of Officer, was convicted and fined $70,000 at the Dandenong Magistrates' Court after being found guilty of four charges relating to unregistered building and plumbing work at a Belgrave home. The Building and Plumbing Commission published the outcome on 30 March 2026.
“Mionnet, 33 of Officer, was convicted and fined $70,000 after being found guilty of 4 charges relating to unregistered building and plumbing work at a Belgrave home.”
The Commission's account sets out what the offending covered. Each limb of it is a separate protection, and each one failed independently of the others.
“The offences included carrying out building and plumbing work without the required accreditation, and carrying out building work without a permit and without the required domestic building insurance (DBI).”
On the sentence, the Commission records that Magistrate Hugh Radford said the offending “was very serious and required a substantial penalty as a punishment and deterrent”. That is the Commission's account of the hearing rather than a transcript of the bench, and we treat it as such.
“This court outcome should serve as a warning to those who illegally build and put consumers at risk.”
Decided, and still outstanding
This is the distinction that matters most to anybody reading this while something similar is happening to them. A conviction and a recovery are two different events, and only one of them has happened here.
We are being deliberate about that middle row. It would be easy to read a $70,000 fine as the story ending well. The penalty and the loss are separate ledgers, and on the ledger that mattered to her the balance has not moved.
What it cost her
The Commission opens its account by describing an illegal and dangerous renovation “that left a single mum financially and emotionally devastated”. Court reporting of the hearing records that the money she paid had been given to her by her late father, and that she gave a victim impact statement about what the experience had cost her beyond the money: her peace, her confidence, and ongoing distress for her and her family. She wrote that she had lost her “sense of trust”, in tradespeople, in the system and in her own judgement, and that she now felt “guarded and fearful of being taken advantage of again”.
The costs did not stop at what she paid him. Court reporting of the hearing records that she then paid more than $13,600 for independent inspection and reporting, which is what established that the incomplete work was defective. Site Inspections carried out that inspection and wrote that report. We are disclosing that because a reader is entitled to know that the firm telling this story was paid to work on it. What the figure covers is the professional investigation of a build that had already gone wrong, and it sits on top of the $43,000 she had handed over and the $55,000 she has never seen.
We have quoted that briefly and we are not going to build a story around it. She is the reason this article exists, not an illustration in it. The rest of it is about the mechanism, because the mechanism is the part that can be handed to somebody else before it happens to them.
02He asked for a 50 per cent deposit. The legal maximum is 5 per cent.
One number, checkable in ten seconds, and it was wrong by a factor of ten before any work started. If you take one thing from this article, take this.
The Commission's account is that Mionnet quoted $35,000 for the job and then “asked for a 50% deposit”, which the Commission describes as “well in excess of the maximum 5%”. It records that he “continually asked for progress payments and added extra charges that were not included in the original quote”. In total the homeowner handed over $43,000.
The maximum is not a guideline or an industry convention. It is a provision of an Act of the Victorian Parliament, it carries a penalty, and it has read the same way for years.
“A builder must not demand or receive a deposit under a domestic building contract of more than 5% of any contract price that is $20 000 or more…”
“A builder must not demand or receive a deposit under a domestic building contract of more than
(a) 5% of any contract price that is $20 000 or more;
(b) 10% of any contract price that is less than $20 000
before starting any work under the contract.
100 penalty units.”
Run the arithmetic on the quote in this matter. It takes seconds and it is the whole point.
There is a second provision that speaks directly to that last figure, and almost nobody knows it exists.
“A builder who enters into a domestic building contract must not demand, recover or retain from the building owner an amount of money under the contract in excess of the contract price unless authorised to do so by this Act.
100 penalty units.”
Two things have to be said plainly here so that nobody misreads this section. Mionnet was not charged under either of those provisions. The four charges the Commission describes are about registration, permits and insurance. We set out sections 11 and 16 because they are the rule the deposit demand fell outside, and because they are a rule a reader can apply to their own quote this afternoon.
“If a builder does not comply with subsection (1), the building owner may avoid the contract at any time before it is completed.”
“If a court finds proven a charge under subsection (1) against a builder, it may order the builder to refund to the building owner some or all of the amount the building owner has paid the builder under the contract.”
03"You don't need a permit for this"
The second thing he told her, and the one that removed every independent set of eyes from the job.
“The Dandenong Magistrates' Court heard Mionnet quoted $35,000 for the job, and told the homeowner a building permit was not required.”
A permit was required. The general rule is a single sentence, and it is not addressed to builders only.
“A person must not carry out building work unless a building permit in relation to the work has been issued and is in force under this Act.”
“An owner of land must ensure in relation to building work carried out on that land that a building permit in relation to the work has been issued and is in force under this Act.”
Each carries a penalty of 500 penalty units, in the case of a natural person, and 2500 penalty units, in the case of a body corporate.
There is no size exemption hiding here either. The regulator's own practice note on when a permit is required, which our report quotes, deals with decks and verandahs directly.
“A building permit is required for decks and verandahs that are attached to a building such as a house or swimming pool, irrespective of size. A building permit is required for detached decks as part of the amenity to a building.”
The structure in question was a covered entertaining area attached to the back of the house, with a carport alongside it. Our report's site drawing shows the work marked against the floor plan.
Our report recorded the permit breach as a safety hazard rather than a paperwork failure, and the reason is in the sequence rather than the form. A building permit does not merely authorise work. It appoints a registered building surveyor to the job, it fixes the mandatory inspection stages, and it ends in a certificate of final inspection or an occupancy permit. Footings get looked at before they are covered. Framing gets looked at before it is clad. Connections get looked at while they are still connections rather than a ceiling.
Take the permit away and none of those inspections happen, and nobody outside the transaction ever sees the work at the only moment it can be seen. That is the practical difference between a deck that is unapproved and a deck that is unsafe, and in this matter it was both.
04What our inspection actually found
Two inspectors attended on 7 March 2023, engaged by the homeowner. This is what the report recorded, item by item, against the standard each item engages.
The inspection was carried out by two Site Inspections building consultants on a single storey house on a gently sloping block, occupied at the time, in clear and dry conditions. It was non-invasive, which means nothing was opened up. Everything recorded below was visible to anybody who went and looked. The tool list included a FLIR E85 thermal imaging camera, a digital vernier caliper, tape measures and a probe. The report ran to 48 pages and carried 114 images.
The four we recorded as safety hazards
Fourteen items were recorded as non-compliant. Four were recorded a level above that, as safety hazards, and those four are the ones that describe a structure people were expected to stand on.
The report's recommendation on the bearers was not a repair. It was “DEMOLISH WORKS, AND FULL STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING DOCUMENTATION IS REQUIRED”. That is a strong recommendation to put in writing to a client who has just paid $43,000, and it is not one anybody makes casually.
The connections, which are where a deck actually fails
People look at a deck and see timber. What holds a deck up is not the timber, it is the connections between the pieces, and a connection can be wrong in ways that leave the timber looking perfect. That is the argument the annotated survey below is making. Almost every callout on it is a connection.
Four separate connection findings were recorded, and they compound rather than sit side by side.
Washers: “An inspection of the washers installed found that they were MISSING.”
Coach screws: “Coach screw connection into the end grain of the timber member reduces the connection strength to 60% of its capacity… this type of connection is not advised due to possible splitting of the timber and a steel angle bracket with a bolted connection into the side grain should be installed.”
Main beam: “Nail connection from the main beam to the bearers is not adequate. This should have been connected to the column with a cleat plate connection or to a beam with a steel angle and bolted connection. Essentially, none of the deck framing (apart from the joists) is structurally adequate and should be designed by a structural engineer or installed in accordance with AS1684.”
The steel column connections were the fourth. The report recorded that the columns were missing connections and overhanging their pads, that the steel plates had not been welded to the columns, and that the columns were not fully supported by the concrete pads beneath them. It also recorded that the depth of those pad footings was unknown and could not be established without excavation, and recommended that an engineer or the relevant building surveyor dig and inspect them.
The full schedule
Eighteen items in total. Each one is tied to the standard it engages, which is what makes a report something a council, a regulator, an insurer or a tribunal can act on rather than a list of opinions.
05The deck the council said should not be used
Two organisations with no connection to each other looked at the same structure and reached the same conclusion.
Our report, written for the homeowner, recommended demolition. The council inspected the site and reached the same conclusion.
“In total, the homeowner handed over $43,000 before paying for an independent inspection report which revealed the incomplete work was defective. Yarra Ranges Council also inspected the site and confirmed the decking was dangerous and should not be used.”
The carport was in the same condition as the deck. The report recorded that it was structurally unsafe because of inadequate fixing into the concrete pads, that the steel plates had not been welded to the steel columns, and that the columns were not being fully supported by the pads they stood on.
What "dangerous" means on a deck
The word does a lot of work in a media release and almost none in a person's head, so it is worth being concrete about it. Put the findings together and this is what the structure was.
A raised deck, more than a metre off the ground, with no bracing, which is what stops a raised platform racking sideways under load. No barrier along the edge, where a fall of a metre or more was possible. Bearers that failed their strength and serviceability checks, with the central one carrying the others across a 4.17 metre span described in the report as significantly overstressed. The main beam nailed to the bearers instead of bolted through a cleat or a steel angle. Bolted joints made with one bolt where two are required, and made without the washers that stop a bolt head crushing into the timber. Steel columns overhanging their footings, on pads of unknown depth.
None of that announces itself. A deck like that holds up a quiet afternoon perfectly well. The load case it fails is the one everybody builds a deck for: a group of people standing in the same place at the same time, which is the moment the connections are asked for more than they were ever capable of. Connection failures also tend not to be gradual. The warning signs people expect, the sag and the creak, come from timber under load, and here the timber is not the part that is failing.
“Where a deck or balcony is more than 1 m off the ground when measured from the uppermost surface of the deck or balcony at any point to the top of any supporting footing, bracing must be installed… Two diagonally opposed 30 x 0.8 mm galvanized steel straps must be installed across the top or underside of the joists…”
06Why we referred it to the regulator
Our own account of our own conduct, stated once and without embellishment.
Site Inspections referred this matter to the regulator. That is a statement about what we did, made by us. It is not on any public record and the Commission's release does not mention it, so a reader is entitled to weigh it accordingly.
The reasons were on the face of our own report. It recorded that structural works had been undertaken and were unsafe. It recorded that no permits had been applied for. It recorded that the work was worth more than $10,000 and that neither Constructed Building Group nor the individual appeared on the register of practitioners when we searched it. Those are not matters a homeowner should have to carry alone, and they are not matters an inspection company can do anything about. They belong with the body that has the power to investigate and to prosecute.
The regulator publishes a route for exactly this, and it invites the public to use it.
“If you know of an unregistered builder or plumber, you can report them to us via this online tip off form: Report Unregistered Building and Unlicensed Plumbing Work.”
Two things we are not claiming. We do not know what weight our referral or our report carried in the decision to prosecute, and we make no claim about it. Regulators receive information from many directions and their reasoning is their own. And three years passed between our inspection in March 2023 and the conviction in March 2026. Enforcement of this kind is slow, and the person waiting on it is the person who has already paid.
The honest limit is worth stating too, because it shapes what a report can and cannot do for anybody in this position. A report does not get money back. It documents a position so that somebody with power can act on it: a council, a regulator, an insurer, a tribunal. In this matter it did some of that. It did not do the thing she needed most, which was to be made whole, and the $55,000 order still has not been paid.
07The pattern: the second conviction of this kind we have covered
Different people, different suburbs, different amounts. The same doorway in.
In June 2026 the Commission published the outcome of a prosecution in Melbourne's east, where Ha Thi Miki Nguyen pleaded guilty to 12 charges under the Building Act and was fined $170,000. She had been convicted twice for the same method: a court had dealt with her for similar offending in 2022, and three more homeowners found her afterwards through Facebook, where she advertised under two business names and told each of them she was a registered builder.
Set the two files beside each other and the shared mechanism is easy to see.
The common element is not carelessness on anybody's part. It is that a business name does the work a registration number should be doing. Registering a business name is an administrative step available to anyone, and it produces something that looks exactly like a credential: a name, a logo, a page, a quote on a letterhead. Registration as a building practitioner is a different thing entirely, held by a person or a company, recorded on a public register, and attached to a regulatory history.
Nothing in either file suggests the homeowners did anything unreasonable, and in this matter the public record does not say whether any register search was made. It is not a homeowner's job to police the industry. But there is one asymmetry worth naming: the register search takes a minute and costs nothing. Everything after it, including the report we wrote, costs money.
Where a build is already running and something feels wrong, the work needs to be inspected at each stage while framing, connections and membranes are still open. Where a dispute is already heading to a tribunal, what changes the outcome is an independent expert report that ties each defect to the clause it engages.
08How to check a builder before you pay anyone
Five checks. None of them costs anything, and all of them happen before money moves. The full check, for every state and territory, is here: how to check a builder is registered.
The Commission's own guidance from this case is the shortest version: “consumers should always use a registered builder and a licensed or registered plumber”, and it publishes a free register for both at bpc.vic.gov.au/check.
The threshold that decides whether registration is required is not a rule of thumb. It is a figure fixed by regulation.
“For the purposes of the definition of major domestic building contract in section 3(1) of the Act, an amount of $10 000 is fixed.”
“A person must not carry out domestic building work under a major domestic building contract unless the person is a registered builder or a licensed building employee.
Penalty: 500 penalty units, in the case of a natural person; 2500 penalty units, in the case of a body corporate.”
Plumbing is licensed separately, and it matters more on a job like this one than most people expect. Roof drainage, downpipes, gutters and stormwater are plumbing work. The roofing and drainage section of our report carried eight of the eighteen items recorded, and one of the four charges he was found guilty of was carrying out plumbing work without the required accreditation.
“A person must not carry out any plumbing work of a particular class or type unless he or she is licensed or registered by the Authority to carry out work of that class or type.
500 penalty units.”
And if you are buying a home that somebody else had work done on, the registration question is historic and the condition of the work is the live one. Unpermitted structures do not appear on a title search, and a deck built the way this one was built photographs beautifully. That is what an independent inspection before you commit is for.
09Sources
Every claim in this article is drawn from one of the documents below.
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