Nine checks and about an hour of your time screen out almost every bad outcome before the first day on site. What goes wrong with a bathroom is decided in what the contract says and who signed it, and the 10 red flags at the foot of this page are the quickest of the nine to run.

The same nine apply whether the job is a shower rebuild in one of the early 1990s estates or a full reconfiguration in a heritage house north of High Street. Work through them in order, because each one narrows the field before you spend time on the next.

1. Is the business actually registered, and under what class?

The regulator is the Building and Plumbing Commission, the BPC. Any renovator still claiming registration with the former state authority is quoting from old material, and that is the first thing you learn about them.

Ask for the registered entity name and the registration number, in writing.
Look that entity up on the BPC register yourself rather than accepting a screenshot.
Confirm the registration is current and has not lapsed or been suspended.
Confirm the class reaches the job you are actually asking for. A bathroom specialist normally holds the limited class, which is fine for a same footprint room and stops being enough once the work pushes past the existing external walls, floor or ceiling.
Match the registered name against the quote, the contract, the invoice and the bank account.

A different entity on the payment details than on the registration is where you stop. Watch the vocabulary as well: a business that calls its building registration a licence has not read the rules it works under. The registration classes, and the contract value above which registration becomes compulsory, are in what the law requires.

2. Who is physically on site

The registered builder is rarely the person laying the tiles. Ask who does each part, and under what.

Trade	What to pin down
Plumbing	The plumber’s licence details, and written confirmation that you will be handed the compliance certificate
Electrical	The electrical contractor’s details, and the safety certificate at handover
Waterproofing	Who applies it, which product, how many coats, and to what height up the wall
Asbestos, on a pre 1990 house	Who takes the sample, which laboratory tests it, and who holds the removal licence

Two of those certificates are documents you keep for years, so a renovator who is vague about which trade issues them has not handed many over.

3. What a comparable quote must show

A quote you cannot line up against another quote is a quote you cannot judge. Ask for any of these that are missing:

The tiling height in millimetres, the square metres being tiled, and the tile allowance per square metre.
The membrane: which product, how many coats, bond breakers at the junctions, and the height on the shower walls.
The substrate: old sheet out, new wet area sheet in, floor screeded to falls.
Asbestos: sampled ahead of demolition, with removal either priced or excluded in words.
Fixtures: a named allowance per item, or the actual model and finish, never a bare PC sum.
The exhaust: ducted to outside air rather than into the roof cavity.
Rubbish: skip, floor protection through the house, final clean.
Variations: how one is priced, and that it needs your written agreement first.
Timeline: a start date, a working day count, and the cure days shown separately.

Check the code edition named in the waterproofing specification is the current one. Victoria moved to a newer edition of the construction code during 2026 and plenty of quote templates have not caught up. The item by item comparison table is on what a bathroom renovation costs in Berwick.

4. What should the contract lock down before you sign?

A written contract is compulsory above a set value, which captures nearly every full bathroom in Berwick. Beyond the obvious, read two clauses closely. Progress payments should follow finished stages rather than dates on a calendar, and the variation clause should require your written agreement before any extra work begins. The full list of what the contract has to contain is on what the law requires.

5. Is the deposit inside the legal cap?

Work out the deposit as a percentage of the contract price and compare it against the statutory cap for that price band. Anything well above the cap is unlawful rather than merely cheeky, and it is the only check on this page that needs no technical knowledge at all. A discount offered for paying cash belongs in the same category, because it strips out your contract position along with the GST.

6. Whether the warranty scheme reaches your job

Ask whether the contract value puts the work inside the current home warranty scheme, and ask for the paperwork where it does. Then look hard at any scope that has been quietly trimmed to land just below the threshold, because that trim costs you the cover. A renovator’s own in house guarantee is a different thing altogether, and the reason it is worth less than it sounds is explained on the same page as the scheme thresholds.

7. How the permit question should be answered

The answer you want is that a building surveyor will confirm the position before the start date. The answer to worry about is a flat no given over the phone by someone who has not looked at the framing, especially where a wall is coming out, a floor is being dropped for a level entry shower, or a separate toilet is being folded into the bathroom. In Casey the surveyor is engaged by the owner, and the triggers are listed on what the law requires.

8. What should you ask at the site visit?

What will you find behind that wall, and what happens to the price if you do.
What is the asbestos plan for this house, given its age.
How high does the waterproofing go on the shower walls, and how many coats.
How many days between the last membrane coat and the first tile.
Where does the exhaust fan vent to.
Who is the plumber and who is the electrician, and will I get both certificates.
What is the contingency in this quote, and is it named in the contract.
If the tiles arrive short, who pays for the delay.

Questions 3 and 4 tell you most of what you need. A crew that answers with a height, a coat count, bond breakers at the junctions and a day on which tiling starts has done the job properly before. A crew that says the waterproofing is included has not answered.

9. Whether this crew has worked on your part of Berwick

Berwick is four different renovation problems wearing one postcode, and a quote written for the wrong one lands on you as a variation.

Housing layer	What the job is really about
1970s and 1980s brick veneer	Asbestos management, and the wall area added when the old tile line is lifted to the ceiling
Early 1990s estates	A strip out and rebuild on the existing footprint, with a membrane long past its service life
Heritage core north of High Street	Timber floors, walls out of square, and structural carpentry for anything level entry
Post 2010 estates	Widening a tight builder specification ensuite and replacing builder grade fittings

Ask which of those four they did most recently. Someone whose last six jobs were all in the new estates will underquote a heritage timber floor, and the cost of that guess lands on your variation, not theirs. The realistic timelines for each are on how long a bathroom renovation takes.

The ten red flags that end the conversation

A deposit above the legal cap.
A different entity name on the bank details than on the registration.
Cash only, or a discount for cash.
No written contract on a job of any real size.
A permit ruled out before anyone has looked at the framing.
No mention of asbestos on a house built before 1990.
A quote far below the others with no identifiable extra line explaining it.
Waterproofing and tiling scheduled on the same day.
Pressure to sign today for a price that expires tonight.
A refusal to put the variation process in writing.

Number 8 is the technical one and it is worth understanding, because it is the shortcut behind most of the failures on signs your shower is leaking.

What to hold at handover

The signed contract and every written variation, the permit paperwork where one was required, the plumbing compliance certificate, the electrical safety certificate, the waterproofing details including product and dates, and the fixture warranties. Chase anything missing while the crew is still on site, because it gets much harder afterwards.

Berwick Bathroom Renovations is operated by Yes Right Pty Ltd. Quotes are written and fixed for the scope described, the work is carried out by registered and licensed trades, and you get a reply within one business day. See our bathroom renovation service for what a job covers, or send yours through the quote form.

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A checklist for choosing a bathroom renovator