As the home building industry rushes to complete homes before Christmas and get ready for the holiday shutdown, the Victorian government has elected to release buyer protection proposals for public comment. Submissions are expected to be submitted by 1 February 2026.

“HIA strongly believes that the timing of the release of these proposals and short time to consider and respond is unreasonable.  It will not allow enough time for considered responses from stakeholders. The timing of the release and the tight deadline suggests that the Victorian government is indifferent to feedback,” said Mr Ryan.

“HIA opposed the Buyer Protection Act as it has an unnecessarily broad definition of what triggers a claim for assistance and distorts the process for builders and clients to resolve disputes. Sadly, these laws are unlikely to improve consumer protection outcomes but will lead to more builders not being paid for their work.  

“The draft regulations do nothing to respond to our concerns about these laws and instead seem to make a bad situation worse. The proposed regulations will create an expectation for consumers that can never be satisfied.

“It is also impossible to see how the Victorian government will be able to administer these new laws by July 2026. We expect to see as a minimum a repeat of 2017 when the Victorian government last attempted to improve the dispute resolution process between builders and consumers and instead created a backlog of unhappy consumers waiting months for their disputes to be considered.  

“HIA calls on the Victorian government to extend the time for industry, and indeed other stakeholders who probably also want a summer holiday, to respond to these regulation proposals,” concluded Mr Ryan.