I see the same heartbreaking scenario play out nearly every single week in Perth.
An excited young couple finally gets an offer accepted on a solid-looking double-brick home in the northern suburbs. They book our services for a pre-purchase building inspection just to tick the compliance box.
I head out to the property, pull on the overalls and get up into the roof space.
Straight away, I spot it: thousands of dollars worth of completely rusted gutters, extensive water damage behind the main bathroom shower leaking straight into the hallway floorboards and a patio out back that looks suspiciously like a DIY weekend job without council approval.
It is a massive headache. These repairs will easily clear $15,000 to $20,000.
I fill out the report, send it over, and prepare for the inevitable phone call.
The buyer is shocked, but they tell me, “It’s alright, Paul. We’ve got the standard REIWA building inspection clause in our contract. We’ll just tell the seller they have to fix it, or we’ll walk away.”
That is the exact moment I have to break the worst legal news a home buyer can hear in Western Australia: No, you can’t.
In WA’s current property system, the standard contract heavily protects the seller, leaving buyers legally bound to purchase homes with major flaws.
Let’s look at why the system works this way, why the advice from inspectors can feel so impractical, and how you can actually protect your hard-earned cash without getting burned.
The Fine Print That Catches Everyone: Structural vs. Major Non-Structural
The root of the problem lies in the standard Annexure for Major Structural Defects that most real estate agents attach to the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA) Offer and Acceptance form.
To the average person, a major defect means anything that costs a lot of money to fix or stops the house from functioning properly.
But as a registered builder with lots of hands-on experience, I know the legal framework draws an incredibly rigid line.
The standard clause only covers structural defects. These are faults in the load-bearing skeleton of the building that actively compromise its safety or stability.
Everything else is classified as non-structural. The financial reality of these two categories looks completely different:
Defect Type | Examples | What Happens under the standard clause? |
Major Structural | Sagging roof struts, failing foundations, severe cracking in load-bearing internal brickwork. | The seller must act. They can either choose to repair the structure before settlement, or you can legally terminate the contract. |
Major Non-Structural | Failed waterproofing in a leaking shower, rusted gutters, broken air-con, illegal/unapproved patios, rising damp, completely blown electrical boxes. | You are stuck. The seller can flatly refuse to fix a single item, and you cannot walk away. If you try to pull out, you risk losing your deposit and being sued for breach of contract. |
Sellers and agents love this system because it creates a frictionless path to settlement.
It allows a home with thousands of dollars in deferred maintenance to be sold at full premium price because the average buyer simply won’t spot these issues during a hectic, 15-minute weekend home open.
The Pre-Offer Dilemma: Why the Perfect Advice Fails in the Real Market
If you speak to any building inspector worth their salt, they will tell you the gold standard is to get the property inspected before you submit your Offer and Acceptance.
Statistically and legally, they are 100% correct.
If I inspect a house before you sign anything, the legal principle of caveat emptor (buyer beware) works in your favour.
Every single fault I find, whether it’s a sagging roof timber or a cracked roof tile, becomes leverage.
You can use my report to negotiate $10,000 off the price, or you can decide the property is a money pit and walk away with zero financial penalty.
But let’s be entirely honest about the real-world Perth market: almost nobody does this, and for good reason.
Paying $600 to $800 for a comprehensive building and timber pest inspection on a property you don’t even own is a massive gamble.
In a fast-moving, competitive market, if you tell an agent you want to arrange a private building inspection before you submit a piece of paper, they will simply thank you for your time and accept a clean, unconditional offer from the next person in line.
You end up out of pocket by hundreds of dollars with absolutely nothing to show for it.
The Solution: How to Rewrite the Rules
You do not have to accept a system that forces you to choose between financial gambling or signing away your legal protection.
Remember: everything in an Offer and Acceptance contract is negotiable before you sign it.
If you cannot inspect a property pre-offer due to time constraints or cost, you can completely bypass the agent’s restrictive standard structural annexure.
You have the right to insert your own protective language into the Special Conditions section of the contract.
Instead of accepting their terms, instruct the agent to write in this exact condition:
“This offer is subject to the buyer obtaining a Comprehensive Building and Timber Pest Inspection report to the absolute satisfaction of the buyer within 14 days of acceptance.”
By substituting the words “to the absolute satisfaction of the buyer” for the standard structural wording, you successfully shift the balance of power back to your side.
If I go into that roof space and find a disaster zone of non-structural issues, this clause gives you the legal teeth to say to the seller: “Fix these items, drop the price, or I am invoking the condition to terminate the contract.”
Never let the fast pace of the Perth property market trick you into thinking a building report is just a rubber stamp. When you are looking for an inspector, make sure you hire a WA Registered Builder who knows how local homes are put together and make absolutely sure your contract gives you the right to act on what they find.