If you’re a licensed builder in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, or anywhere in South East Queensland and someone has asked you to step in as their nominee, there’s one question worth answering before you say yes: what does QBCC nominee supervisor liability actually mean for you, personally and professionally?
It’s a fair question — and one that doesn’t get enough airtime. Most conversations about becoming a nominee focus on the upside: a fee, a favour for a colleague, a way to stay active in the industry between projects. Far fewer people sit down and walk through what you’re actually agreeing to carry. This post breaks down QBCC nominee supervisor liability in plain English, covering the legislation, what the QBCC actively audits for, and what you can do to protect yourself going in.
WHAT QBCC NOMINEE SUPERVISOR LIABILITY ACTUALLY COVERS
When you become a nominee for a company licence, you’re not lending your name in a passive sense. You’re putting your personal licence on the line to vouch for the technical and supervisory competence behind every job that company runs under that licence class.
Under the Queensland Building and Construction Commission Act 1991 (the QBCC Act), a licensed building company must have a nominee who is a genuine employee, director, or secretary of that company. This is set out in section 30A of the Act. The employment arrangement has to reflect a real relationship — wages paid, superannuation contributed — not a paperwork formality.
Section 42B makes it an offence for a company to carry out building work at all without a properly appointed nominee in place. Which means your role isn’t decorative. It’s the legal foundation the company’s licence rests on.
THE TWO SUPERVISION OBLIGATIONS NOMINEES CARRY
This is where QBCC nominee supervisor liability becomes very specific. Two sections of the QBCC Act create distinct, personal obligations for anyone in the nominee role.
Section 43 — Personal supervision. The company and its nominee must each ensure that building work is personally supervised by either the nominee themselves, another appropriately licensed officer or employee of the contractor, or a person holding a contractor’s licence of the relevant class. The maximum penalty for a breach is 200 penalty units for an individual and 1,000 penalty units for a company.
Section 43A — Adequate supervision. Beyond just being physically present, nominees must ensure the supervision is adequate. The QBCC assesses adequacy against a specific set of criteria: whether the contractor has an actual system for supervision and how well it’s been implemented; whether the work complies with plans and specifications; whether the work meets the standard expected of a competent licence holder; whether the level of control, oversight, inspections, and the timing and quality of those inspections are sufficient given the size and complexity of the work; and whether completed work is checked at handover. The same maximum penalties apply — 200 penalty units for an individual, 1,000 for a company.
These are not obligations you can delegate or contract your way out of. They sit with you personally, and the QBCC is explicit about that.
Section 51 also prohibits licence lending — a licensee allowing another person to make use of their licence. The maximum penalty for this is 250 penalty units. The reason this matters in a liability context is that any arrangement where supervision is nominal rather than real starts to look like licence lending. The gap between “I’m the nominee on paper” and “I’m genuinely supervising” is exactly where section 51 becomes relevant.
WHAT THE QBCC ACTIVELY AUDITS FOR
Understanding QBCC nominee supervisor liability isn’t just about knowing the legislation — it’s about knowing how the QBCC enforces it. There are specific risk indicators the regulator uses to flag nominee arrangements for closer review. If you trigger them, a compliance audit becomes significantly more likely.
The primary risk indicators are:
A part-time or casual employment arrangement where the company is undertaking a full-time volume of building work. This is probably the most common situation that draws QBCC attention. The hours you’re contracted for must genuinely be sufficient to supervise the actual volume and complexity of that company’s active sites.
Residing or operating more than 300 kilometres from the building sites. The QBCC applies a geographic proximity standard because adequate supervision requires physical site attendance. If you’re nominating for a company running jobs that are hours from your base, that’s a red flag regardless of how the contract reads.
Acting as nominee for two or more other construction-related entities. The QBCC has a stated risk indicator around multi-entity nominee arrangements. Each additional company you nominate for increases the scrutiny on whether your total supervisory hours are physically possible across all sites combined.
If more than one of these applies to your situation, that doesn’t mean the arrangement is unlawful — but it does mean the standard of evidence you’ll need to defend it is much higher. A consolidated site schedule, documented inspection records, and timesheets that show what you actually did, not just what you were contracted to do, become essential.
WHY LIABILITY DOESN’T STOP WHEN YOU LEAVE
One detail that surprises a lot of nominees: QBCC nominee supervisor liability for work carried out while you held the role doesn’t end the day you resign. Complaints, defect claims, and compliance investigations can relate to projects completed months or even years earlier.
There’s also a specific legal obligation when you do exit. Under the QBCC Act, you must notify the QBCC within 14 days of ceasing to be the nominee for a company. Failing to lodge the approved form within that window is itself an offence — and it leaves you potentially liable for work performed by the company after your departure, at least until the QBCC has been formally notified.
This is also why it matters how you exit. A clean handover — documented supervision history, clear sign-off on outstanding works, and a defined end date properly filed with the QBCC — gives you a defensible record long after you’ve moved on.
PROTECTING YOURSELF BEFORE YOU START
The best time to manage QBCC nominee supervisor liability is before you take the role, not after something goes wrong. A few things worth implementing from day one:
Get the supervision structure documented. What sites will you attend, how often, and at what stages of construction? Stage inspections — prior to concrete pours, at framing completion, before waterproofing, at final handover — should be defined in writing, not improvised. The QBCC’s own adequacy assessment under section 43A looks specifically at whether a system for supervision exists and how it’s been implemented.
Keep your own site records. Visit notes, photographs, checklists signed off by you personally, and written directions to subcontractors are your evidence trail. The QBCC recommends retaining these records for a minimum of seven years. Don’t rely on the company to hold these for you.
Understand the licence class and scope. The work being carried out under the licence needs to match the class you’re nominating for. Scope creep — companies taking on project types or sizes outside their licence class — is a common and avoidable source of liability for nominees who didn’t ask the right questions at the start.
Be honest about capacity. If the workload genuinely exceeds what you can properly supervise given your hours and travel commitments, that conversation needs to happen before the company takes on more contracts, not after a complaint lands.
COMMON SCENARIOS THAT CATCH NOMINEES OUT
A few patterns show up repeatedly in disputes around nominee arrangements:
A company grows faster than its supervision infrastructure. New contracts come in, more sites open, but the nominee’s hours and visit schedule stay the same as when the business was half the size. The nominee ends up responsible on paper for far more than is practically possible.
A nominee brought in as a favour with minimal real involvement. This is common between former colleagues or industry contacts, but minimal oversight is exactly what regulators scrutinise when a defect or site incident arises. Being named on the licence without genuine supervisory involvement is the definition of the arrangement the QBCC is watching for.
A change in company ownership or direction without the nominee being updated. New management, new project types, new risk profile — but nobody thought to review what the nominee was actually agreeing to supervise. The nominee’s obligations don’t automatically adjust when the company changes around them.
CASCADING RISK ACROSS MULTIPLE COMPANIES
If you’re nominating for more than one company — which is a common arrangement for experienced builders — it’s worth understanding the cascading risk. If your personal licence is adversely affected due to conduct by one client company, every other company for which you are nominee loses its entitlement to carry out licensed building work. One problematic arrangement can affect every other company you’re supporting.
This is part of why the QBCC treats multi-entity nominee arrangements as a risk indicator in the first place. The more companies in the arrangement, the more exposure concentrates on your personal licence.
WHEN THE ROLE CHANGES — THE TRANSITION QUESTION
QBCC nominee supervisor liability also comes up in transition periods. If you’re a building company owner whose nominee is leaving, the compliance priority is clear: the company cannot legally carry out building work without a properly appointed nominee in place. That’s not a grace period — section 42B is explicit. Getting a replacement in place, properly appointed and notified to the QBCC, is the immediate task.
Builders Helping Builders works specifically with companies navigating this kind of change. If your business needs to replace QBCC nominee supervisor arrangements quickly and compliantly, that’s the situation BHB helps construction businesses across South East Queensland work through.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Becoming a nominee is a real commitment with real personal exposure — not just a business arrangement that can be tidied up contractually if something goes wrong. Sections 43 and 43A of the QBCC Act make the obligations personal, non-delegable, and enforceable. The QBCC’s compliance audit criteria make clear that they’re actively looking for arrangements where supervision doesn’t match what the paperwork says.
That doesn’t mean the role isn’t worth taking on — for many experienced builders across Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and beyond, it’s a sensible and well-structured part of their working life. It just means going in with an honest view of what you’re agreeing to, a documented supervision system, and a clear record of what you actually did on site.
If you’re weighing up a nominee role, want a second opinion on how an existing arrangement is structured, or you’re a company owner who needs to manage a nominee transition properly, get in touch with the team at bhba.com.au.
