What is a commencement notice on a pool contract?

Why the notice matters more than the contract date

Queensland lets a contract state the Date for Practical Completion in one of two ways: as an actual date, or as a method of working one out. The QBCC's own example of a method is “180 days from commencement”.

Most pool contracts use the second form, and for a good reason — nobody knows on the day you sign when the excavator will be free, when the certifier will approve, or what the weather will do. But a duration with no start date is not a date. A contract that says 180 days from commencement, and nothing else, tells you nothing about when your pool will be finished.

The commencement notice is the second half of that equation. It states the date work started on site, and it states the Date for Practical Completion. Once you hold it, “180 days from commencement” has become a day on a calendar, in writing, signed by your contractor.

That is the whole function of the document, and it is why it is worth more than any verbal assurance you were given during the sale.

The 10 business day deadline, and what it means in calendar time

The QBCC's wording is precise: “For contracts priced at $20,000 or more, the contractor must give the owner a signed Commencement Notice within 10 business days of work commencing on site.”

Two details do real work here.

Business days, not days. Ten business days is two working weeks, which in calendar terms is fourteen days, and more across a public holiday. If work started on the Monday before Easter you may reasonably be waiting until well into the following month. That is not your builder being slow; it is the deadline as written.

From work commencing on site, not from signing, and not from approval. The clock starts when work starts on the ground. For a pool that is usually the day set-out or excavation begins, which is also — in Victoria and in practice most places — the day the site fence must already be standing.

So the realistic sequence is: contract signed, weeks or months of approvals, work starts on site, and then the notice arrives up to a fortnight later. If you signed in March and heard nothing by May, that is normal. If the excavator has been and gone and there is still no notice three weeks later, that is not.

What to do if the notice never arrives

It very often does not, and the reason is banal rather than sinister: on a small job the notice is paperwork nobody chases, and most owners do not know to ask.

Ask in writing, and keep it unremarkable — you are requesting a document you are entitled to, not making an allegation:

“Work started on site on [date]. Could you please send the signed commencement notice under section 16 of Schedule 1B, confirming the start date and the Date for Practical Completion?”

An email does two useful things even before it is answered. It records the date you say work started, and it records the date you asked. If the finish date later becomes contested, a request sent in week three is a much better document than a complaint sent in month seven.

If it still does not come, the QBCC is the body to ask, and the failure is a compliance matter for them rather than something you need to escalate yourself.

Reading the notice against delay claims

The notice is not only a start-of-job document. The QBCC's guidance is that home owners should refer to it together with any extension of time claims they have approved when working out whether, and from what date, they may be entitled to liquidated damages.

That gives you a simple piece of arithmetic to keep as the job runs:

Date for Practical Completion from the commencement notice, plus every extension of time you have approved in writing, equals the date the pool is contractually due. Not the date on the notice. Not the date you were told at the sale.

Keep the notice and every approved extension in one place, because together they are the only record of what that date now is. We cover how extensions work in what to do when a pool build is running late, and the payments side in liquidated damages on a pool contract.

Ask about it before you sign, not after

The commencement notice arrives after you have committed, but the thing it reports — how the Date for Practical Completion is determined — is written into the contract before you sign, and is negotiable at that point and only at that point.

Two questions worth asking every builder quoting your job:

• “Does the contract state an actual Date for Practical Completion, or a method?” Either is lawful. A method is normal and reasonable. You simply want to know which you are getting.
• “What is the method, and what does commencement mean in it?” A duration running from a defined, observable event is worth more than one running from something vague.

An answer to those two questions costs nothing and tells you a lot about how a business runs its paperwork. If you are gathering quotes now, ask all of them the same pair and compare the answers — compare pool builder quotes on the contract terms, not only the price, and read the questions to ask a pool builder first.

Common questions

Sources

• QBCC — Consumer Building Guide, version 3 (effective July 2023)
• QBCC — Commencing construction
• QBCC — Domestic building contracts

General information only, current at 2026-09-18. 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.