Contractor Management and Compliance for Strata and Facilities Teams

A practical Australian guide to contractor compliance for strata and FM: the documents to collect, how to onboard and verify, and how to stay current.

Managing contractors is one of the highest-risk parts of running a building. Strata managers, owners corporations and facilities teams engage electricians, plumbers, fire technicians, lift servicers, cleaners and dozens of trades every year — and when something goes wrong on site, the question of who held what paperwork, and when, decides who carries the liability.

This guide explains why contractor compliance matters under Australian work health and safety (WHS) law, the documents you should collect and keep current, how to onboard and verify a new contractor, and how to stop the most common failure of all: relying on out-of-date paperwork.

Why does contractor compliance matter for strata and facilities teams?

Contractor compliance matters because it is both a safety obligation and a legal one. Under the model WHS Act adopted across most of Australia (with Victoria operating a closely aligned OHS regime), an owners corporation, strata management firm or facilities manager that engages and directs contractors is a person conducting a business or undertaking — a PCBU. PCBUs have a primary duty of care to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers and other people affected by the work.

Critically, that duty cannot be contracted away. When more than one PCBU shares a duty — for example, the building manager who engages the contractor and the contractor itself — they must consult, cooperate and coordinate. So even though a tradesperson runs their own business, the team that engaged them retains responsibility for verifying competence, insurance and safe systems of work.

The practical reasons follow from the legal ones:

Safety. Most serious incidents in buildings involve contractor work — electrical, working at heights, confined spaces, hot works, plant and equipment.
Liability and insurance. If a contractor is uninsured or unlicensed and something goes wrong, the cost and the claim can flow back to the owners corporation.
Regulatory exposure. WHS regulators can issue improvement and prohibition notices and prosecute where due diligence is absent.
Continuity. Lapsed licences or expired insurance can halt essential services such as fire, lifts and electrical at the worst possible moment.

What documents should you collect from a contractor?

Collect evidence that the contractor is competent, insured and works safely — and record the expiry date of everything that has one. At a minimum, a compliant contractor file should contain:

Trade licences and qualifications. The relevant occupational licence for the work (electrical, plumbing and gasfitting, refrigeration/air-conditioning, lifts) plus any high-risk work licences (for example, scaffolding, rigging, dogging, working with elevated work platforms). Licences are issued by state and territory regulators, so check the licence is valid in the jurisdiction where the work happens.
Public liability insurance. A current certificate of currency. Many owners corporations require a minimum of $10–$20 million, depending on the work and the building.
Workers compensation. A certificate of currency where the contractor employs staff. Sole traders may not be required to hold a policy, in which case obtain a personal accident/income protection declaration so the gap is documented.
Professional indemnity insurance. Where the contractor provides design, certification or advice (for example, engineers, fire safety assessors, consultants).
Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS). Required for high-risk construction work. A SWMS sets out the hazards, the risk controls and how the work will be done safely. Review it before work starts — don't just file it.
Site and building induction. Evidence the contractor has completed your induction covering site rules, emergency procedures, asset isolation points, sign-in and key/access handling.
Trade-specific competencies and tickets. Asbestos awareness or removal licensing, confined space entry, electrical test-and-tag, fire systems accreditation, working-at-heights training.
ABN and business details, plus references for new contractors.

How do you onboard and verify a new contractor?

Onboard by collecting documents up front, then verifying each one against the issuing source before approving the contractor for work. Collecting paperwork is not the same as verifying it — a PDF in an inbox proves nothing until it's checked.

A reliable onboarding sequence looks like this:

Request the full document set before any work is scheduled.
Verify licences at the source. Most state regulators publish a free public licence-check register. Confirm the licence number, the holder's name and the licence class match the work.
Confirm insurance is genuine and current. Check the certificate names the correct entity, the cover amount meets your minimum, and the policy period is current. For large or ongoing work, ask to be noted as an interested party.
Review the SWMS for the actual task — not a generic template — and confirm the controls suit your building.
Run the induction and record who attended and when.
Approve and record the contractor as compliant, with every expiry date captured, before issuing the first work order.

This is where purpose-built tooling earns its place. A contractor register and compliance vault — like the one in Orveya, an Australian-built strata and facilities platform — keeps every certificate, licence and SWMS against the contractor record with its expiry date, so onboarding is a checklist rather than a scramble through emails.

How do you keep contractor compliance current over time?

Keep compliance current by monitoring expiry dates and re-verifying before documents lapse — not after. The single most common compliance failure isn't bad onboarding; it's good onboarding that quietly goes stale. An insurance certificate that was valid in March is worthless in September, and nobody notices until there's a claim.

Build ongoing monitoring around these habits:

Track every expiry date for licences, public liability, workers compensation and tickets in one place.
Set reminders 30–60 days ahead so renewals are requested before the document lapses, not after.
Block expired contractors automatically. A contractor with a lapsed licence or insurance should not be assignable to a new work order until the document is renewed and re-verified.
Re-verify, don't just re-file. When a renewed certificate arrives, check it the same way you did at onboarding.
Keep an audit trail. Record who verified each document and when, so you can demonstrate due diligence if a regulator or insurer asks.

Automation helps here, but the decision should stay human. In Orveya, AI surfaces upcoming expiries and flags gaps, but actions such as approving a contractor or clearing them for high-risk work happen only under human approval — which matches the WHS principle that the duty holder, not a tool, owns the call.

When do you need a permit to work?

Use a permit to work for high-risk activities where the consequences of getting it wrong are severe and the work needs formal authorisation before it starts. A permit to work is a documented control that confirms the hazards have been assessed, the right precautions are in place, and a responsible person has authorised the work for a defined time and location.

Typical activities that warrant a permit in strata and FM settings include:

Hot works — welding, grinding, cutting or anything producing sparks or flame, with fire-watch requirements.
Working at heights above the threshold where a fall risk exists.
Confined space entry — tanks, pits, risers, plant rooms.
Electrical isolation and live electrical work.
Roof access and façade/anchor-point work.
Asbestos disturbance or removal.
Isolation of fire, sprinkler or essential safety systems.

The permit should record the SWMS, the isolation points, who authorised the work, the time window, and the steps to return systems to service afterwards. Pair permits with your induction and SWMS review so high-risk work never proceeds on unverified paperwork.

How should you handle contractor performance and record-keeping?

Keep durable records of every job and every compliance check, and track performance so renewal and re-engagement decisions are based on evidence. Good record-keeping protects you twice: it demonstrates due diligence, and it tells you which contractors are worth keeping.

Practical record-keeping covers:

Work order history — what was done, by whom, when, and the outcome.
Compliance status at the time of each job — proof the contractor was current when the work happened, not just today.
Quotes and invoices tied to the work order for a complete commercial trail.
Certificates of compliance for regulated work (electrical, plumbing, fire) collected on completion.
Performance notes — responsiveness, quality, defects, callbacks — to inform re-engagement.

How do you stop using out-of-date contractor paperwork?

Stop relying on stale paperwork by making the current, verified document the only one the system will accept — and by blocking work when a document has expired. Spreadsheets and shared drives fail because they store documents without enforcing their status; an expired certificate sits there looking identical to a valid one.

The fixes that actually work:

One source of truth per contractor, holding the live version of each document with its expiry date.
Status-aware assignment — a contractor with any expired mandatory document cannot be added to a new work order.
Automated expiry alerts to both your team and the contractor.
Verification logging so every approval is attributable.
Regular audits of the register to catch contractors who have gone quiet or lapsed.

When the document, the expiry, the verification and the work order all live together, out-of-date paperwork simply can't make it onto a job — which is exactly the outcome WHS due diligence asks for.

Frequently asked questions

Is the owners corporation liable if a contractor is injured on site?

Potentially, yes. As a PCBU, an owners corporation that engages and directs contractors shares a duty of care and must consult, cooperate and coordinate with the contractor's business. Verifying licences, insurance and safe systems of work, and keeping records of that verification, is central to discharging that duty.

How much public liability insurance should a contractor hold?

It depends on the work and the building, but many Australian owners corporations require a minimum of $10–$20 million in public liability cover. Higher-risk work or larger buildings often justify the upper end. Always check the certificate of currency names the correct entity and is current for the work period.

Do sole-trader contractors need workers compensation?

Not always. Workers compensation generally applies where the contractor employs staff; a genuine sole trader may not be required to hold a policy. Where there's no policy, obtain a written declaration and consider personal accident or income protection cover so the gap is documented rather than assumed away.

What is the difference between a SWMS and a permit to work?

A SWMS documents how high-risk work will be done safely — the hazards and the controls. A permit to work is a formal authorisation issued before specific high-risk activities (such as hot works or confined space entry) begin, confirming the controls are in place and naming who approved the work and for how long. High-risk jobs often need both.

How often should contractor documents be checked?

Check status continuously, not annually. Track every expiry date and re-verify each document before it lapses — typically with reminders 30 to 60 days ahead. Any contractor with an expired mandatory licence or insurance should be blocked from new work until the document is renewed and re-verified at the source.

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