General information, not legal or building advice. The standard itself is published by Standards Australia; the official places to check how it applies to you are the QBCC in Queensland, the ACT Legislation Register for the ACT, and your state’s fair trading or consumer affairs body elsewhere, all listed at the foot of this page.
00.1
What the store page shows
As read on 8 October 2026, Standards Australia’s store page gave these details.
- Designation
- AS 4349.1-2007
- Title
- Inspection of buildings, Part 1: Pre-purchase inspections - Residential buildings
- Status shown
- Pending Revision
- Published
- 20 December 2007
- Length
- 25 pages
- Price shown
- $140.34 including GST, on 8 October 2026
The standard is sold as a paid licence for one person, to read in a web reader or as a protected PDF, and the store’s terms forbid copying or sharing it.
Published 2007. Marked Pending Revision.
00.2
Where the law names it
Queensland: the 2007 edition, by name
Queensland’s licence for pre-purchase work names the standard in its scope. The QBCC Regulation 2018 sets the licence’s scope as “A completed building inspection, including an inspection and preparation of a report in accordance with Australian Standard 4349.1-2007 ‘Inspection of buildings-Pre-purchase inspections-Residential buildings’.” The QBCC’s licence page describes the scope the same way.
The ACT: the version in force
For the reports a seller must supply, the ACT Regulation requires a building and compliance inspection report to be completed in accordance with AS 4349.1, which it defines as the standard “as in force from time to time”. The pest inspection report is tied in the same way to AS 4349.3, Timber pest inspections. The Regulation also lists changes to how AS 4349.1 applies for ACT reports. One of them adds an assessment of cosmetic or minor maintenance matters, giving leaking taps, exposed nail heads and peeling paint as examples, and a note says the standard may be bought from Standards Australia.
So the two places word it differently: Queensland’s scope names the 2007 edition, and the ACT’s definition follows whichever version is in force.
New South Wales: “usually AS 4349”
NSW Fair Trading’s guide for buyers says “There is an Australian Standard that pre-purchase building inspection reports must comply with”. In its guidance for agents, the reports an agent must record include “a building inspection of the property (usually AS 4349)”.
Western Australia: the pest standard
Consumer Protection WA says a pest inspection should be done to AS 4349.3, which it calls the national standard for timber pest inspections and reports.
00.3
Why this page stops at the cover
The standard’s requirements are inside a document sold on terms that forbid copying or sharing it, and a summary written without it would be a guess. So nothing on this site describes what AS 4349.1 requires a report to contain.
What a reader can do is compare a report with what is public. If a report names a standard, the number and year printed on it can be read against the details above, and against your state’s rule: Queensland’s licence names the 2007 edition, and the ACT’s Regulation the version in force.
00.4
What the official pages say a report covers
The regulators’ own descriptions are public, and they are the place to start.
- Queensland: in a pre-purchase building inspection, “the inspector will look at your house to see if there are any obvious defects or areas of concern.”
- New South Wales: “The inspector should check all accessible parts of the property.” The page lists them as the interior and exterior of the building, the roof space, the under-floor space, the roof exterior and the site, and says you may ask for a particular item or part to be inspected.
- Victoria: the report will list any faults, whether they can be repaired and how much the repairs are likely to cost, and will highlight any unsafe or unauthorised renovations or extensions.
- South Australia: “The inspector will give you a report identifying any issues and whether they can be repaired.”
NSW Fair Trading adds: “The report’s format, detail and cost will depend on the type of property and the process used by the consultant or organisation to prepare it.” Two reports on two houses can look quite different and still both be reports.
The same page describes a ‘special-purpose’ property report, which normally covers the same items as a building inspection report and may add a cost estimate for fixing major problems, a list of minor problems, and the repairs and maintenance recommended.
If you want to know how a report sits against the standard, ask the inspector who wrote it which edition they worked to and where the report says so. Queensland’s Office of Fair Trading puts the same point more widely: “Make sure you know exactly what the inspection report covers.”