01What changed, and when

A new edition, a new commencement date, and two editions running side by side.

The Building and Plumbing Commission published a new edition of the Guide to Standards and Tolerances on 31 July 2026. It commenced the following day.

The new edition applies to domestic building contracts entered into, or building work that commences, on or after 1 August 2026. It does not apply retrospectively. For contracts entered into or work commenced before that date, the 2015 edition still governs — the BPC's own page directs readers to the previous version for those jobs, while listing it under superseded versions. Two editions are live at once, and the contract date decides which one applies.

The document has also changed shape. The 2015 edition ran to 70 pages across 18 numbered items. The 2026 edition runs to 50 pages, restructured into three parts: Part A background, Part B measurement and inspection, and Part C the technical content — 21 sections holding 127 numbered clauses.

It was revised by the Office of the State Building Surveyor, in consultation with the BPC's dispute resolution and insurance divisions. The 2015 edition was produced by the Victorian Building Authority; the 2026 edition is described as the property of the Victorian Government.

02How the regulator describes the change

The BPC's own summary, in full, before anything else.

"This edition includes updates to improve clarity, readability and consistency, together with refreshed references and guidance to better support consumers and industry in understanding acceptable standards and tolerances."

The same page is explicit about what the Guide is not. It states the Guide "is not legislation, a building contract or a technical construction manual", that it does not replace legislation, the National Construction Code, Australian Standards or contractual obligations, and that it "should not be used to determine whether building work complies with regulatory requirements".

It also sets out how the regulator uses it: the BPC "uses the Guide as a recognised reference when responding to enquiries and supporting the resolution of domestic building disputes".

03From "defective" to "not within tolerance"

The most visible change is the language, and it runs through every clause.

The 2015 edition framed every clause as a defect test. The phrase "is defective" appears 74 times. Work either was defective or it wasn't.

The 2026 edition frames every clause as a tolerance test. The phrases "not within tolerance" and "outside tolerance" appear 195 times between them. "Defective" no longer appears as a test anywhere in the technical content.

One thing did not change, despite appearances: the Guide's status. Both editions state plainly that it sits outside the regulatory hierarchy. The 2015 edition said it "is only a guide and an advisory document. It is not a regulated standard and is not part of this hierarchy." The 2026 edition says it "is only an advisory document. It is not part of the Victorian legislative framework."

What did change is the framing of its purpose. The 2026 edition adds that the intention is "to facilitate the resolution of disputes and not provide the definitive determination of whether building work is considered defective."

04Fault, causation and contract deference

The change that does not appear in the summary, and it runs through the whole document.

The 2015 edition opened clauses with a contract-deference qualifier 20 times — "unless documented otherwise" sixteen times, plus three related variants. The 2026 edition uses none of them. Part A still states that legislation and the building contract take precedence generally, but the clause-by-clause deference is gone.

Fault language went the same way. The 2015 edition attributed defects to the builder or excused the owner repeatedly: "caused by the builder" six times, "due to the builder" six times, "responsibility of the owner" five times, "owner is responsible" three times. It also carried a dedicated section on responsibility to rectify, with five worked examples of where liability sat between builder and owner.

In the 2026 edition's 127 technical clauses, the words "builder" and "owner" appear twice — once at clause 3.2 (footings and slabs, referring to "poor site management by the builder") and once at clause 21.5 (building maintenance, referring to "whether the matter relates to the builder's workmanship or general building use").

The "documented maintenance period" concept has gone entirely, replaced by fixed periods running from completion. And "handover" — the 2015 edition's reference point — has been replaced by "completion", now defined by reference to section 42 of the Domestic Building Contracts Act, the issue of an occupancy permit or certificate of final inspection, or completion under the contract. Handover and completion are not necessarily the same date.

05Clause by clause

Nine pairs, quoted directly from both editions. Clause numbers are given so each can be checked in the source.

06The numbers that moved

Not everything is drafting. Several tolerances changed value.

The masonry reduction is worth its own note. The 2015 edition reproduced AS 3700's tolerance table in full. The 2026 edition keeps six items as diagrams — horizontal position, step of exposed surface, bed joint level and thickness, perpend thickness, and cavity width — and refers readers to Part 12.5 of AS 3700 for the rest. Wall plumbness within a storey, plumbness over total building height, masonry bow, and the maximum difference in perpend thickness are no longer stated in the Guide. They remain in AS 3700.

Light steel framing gains its own tolerances throughout for the first time: plumbness of height/600 or 3 mm, straightness of 5 mm from a 3 m straight edge, truss bow of L/500, and truss plumbness of the lesser of height/100 and 20 mm.

The reference schedule halved. AS 1684 (residential timber-framed construction), AS 3740 (waterproofing of domestic wet areas), AS 4654 (waterproofing membranes for external above-ground use), AS 2047 (windows in buildings), AS 4773.2 (masonry in small buildings), AS/NZS 3500.3 (stormwater drainage), AS/NZS 4386.1 (domestic kitchen assemblies) and AS 1860.2 (particleboard flooring installation) are not referenced anywhere in the 2026 edition. Neither are the four CSIRO building technology files or the ABCB condensation handbook.

One further change sits in Part A. The 2015 edition said the applicable edition of a referenced standard is the one current when the contract was signed. The 2026 edition says it is the edition published at the time building work commenced. On a job where those dates are a year apart and the standard was reissued in between, that is a different document.

07What's new in 2026

Fourteen clauses have no counterpart in the 2015 edition, plus four changes to how the Guide is applied.

Four changes affect how the Guide is used rather than what it measures.

08What was removed

Thirteen items in the 2015 edition have no counterpart in 2026. Several were the only place a number appeared.

09What didn't change

Plenty didn't move, and it is worth knowing before anyone re-measures a job.

Two measurement rules also carried across intact. The rule against interpolating tolerances — that a 4 mm deviation stated over 2 m applies equally over 1 m or 500 mm, and cannot be scaled down — appears in both editions, at Part E in 2015 and Part B in 2026. So do the datum rules for measuring horizontal and vertical surfaces.

The normal viewing position is unchanged at 1.5 m, and 600 mm for appliances and fixtures. The 2026 edition adds a third distance: 3 m for glass. It also now expressly permits digital or laser levels, where the 2015 edition illustrated measurement with a spirit level only.

10Which edition applies to your job

The contract date decides it.

Both editions remain available on the BPC's resource hub — the 2026 edition on its own page, and the 2015 edition listed there under superseded versions.

11Sources

Every comparison in this article was made by reading both editions in full. Clause numbers are cited so any reader can verify each quotation in their own copy.

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