“I'm selling and the pool is not compliant” — what happens now

In the next 24 hours: find out what non-compliant actually means here

"Not compliant" covers everything from a gate that has stopped self-closing to a barrier that was never built to the standard. The cost gap between those two is enormous, and you cannot make a sensible decision until you know which one you have.

Get an inspection and a written list. In New South Wales a council barrier inspection is capped at $150 for the first visit and $100 for a re-inspection, so finding out is cheap. In Queensland a licensed pool safety inspector prices their own service. The most common failures are small and mechanical — a latch, a hinge, a gap over 100mm, or something climbable inside the 900mm non-climbable zone such as a pot plant, a barbecue or a raised garden bed.

Tell your conveyancer or solicitor the same day. The route you take has to be built into the contract, and in Queensland it has to happen before the contract is entered into.

Then do the arithmetic before you rush a rectification

The instinct is to fix it before listing. Often that is right — a latch and a hinge are worth doing. But if the barrier needs replacing, a pool fence costs roughly $2,000–$2,800 in aluminium or $5,700–$12,000 in frameless glass over a 20-metre perimeter, and doing that under settlement pressure is how people pay the top of the range.

The decision rule: if the rectification quote is less than what a buyer would discount for the uncertainty, fix it. If it is more, use the documented route and negotiate the number openly. A buyer who is handed a written quote for the work argues about that quote; a buyer handed an unquantified "non-compliant pool" argues about the whole pool.

Either way you are not hiding anything — both routes are formal disclosures. That is the point of them.

Queensland: the Form 36, and the trap in its timing

If you sell a Queensland property with a pool and no current certificate, you lodge a Form 36 — notice of no pool safety certificate with the QBCC and give a copy to the buyer. The QBCC is explicit that the buyer must be given it before entering into the contract of sale, and at auction that means before the contract, not after the hammer. For a shared pool the body corporate gets a copy too.

The buyer then has 90 days from settlement to obtain a pool safety certificate. For a shared pool the pool owner — usually the body corporate — must obtain and provide one within 90 days of settlement.

The trap is what a Form 36 is not. The QBCC states plainly that it is not an exemption from complying with the requirements of the pool safety standard. The pool still has to be brought up to standard; the form only moves who does it and when. And only a licensed pool safety inspector can issue the certificate — in Queensland a council cannot.

New South Wales: the certificate of non-compliance

Since 29 April 2016 a New South Wales contract for sale must carry a certificate of registration plus a certificate of compliance. Where the pool does not comply, a certificate of non-compliance may be attached instead, and the buyer then has 90 days from settlement to rectify.

The pool must be on the NSW Swimming Pool Register either way — registration is a $10 statutory fee and is not the same thing as compliance. A compliance certificate lasts 3 years, which is why so many sellers discover at listing that the certificate they remember getting has quietly expired.

Full detail is in the NSW certificate guide and selling a house with a pool.

What this is likely to cost you

Three numbers to hold in your head. The inspection to find out: $150 in New South Wales, capped by regulation. The rectification, if it is the common mechanical kind: usually hundreds rather than thousands, and often a latch, a hinge, a self-closing device or moving something out of the non-climbable zone. The barrier replacement, if that is what it is: $2,000–$2,800 aluminium or $5,700–$12,000 frameless glass over 20 metres.

Against that, a non-compliance route costs you whatever the buyer negotiates. Which is why the written quote is the most valuable document in the conversation. What a pool fence costs sets the ranges, the penalties guide covers what non-compliance costs if you keep the property, and you can get free quotes for the rectification work.

Common questions

Sources

• QBCC — Buy, sell or lease a property with a pool
• QBCC — Form 36, notice of no pool safety certificate
• NSW Government — Pools and pool safety: building rights and obligations
• Port Macquarie-Hastings Council — Backyard swimming pools (statutory inspection fees)

General information only, current at 2026-09-10. Pool rules differ by state and by council, and penalty amounts are updated regularly. Confirm your own obligations with your council or a registered inspector before acting.