Pool Safety Certificates QLD: Form 23, Form 36 and Selling Without One

If you are selling a Queensland property with a pool and you do not have a current pool safety certificate, you are not blocked from selling. You lodge a Form 36 with the QBCC and give the buyer a copy. The statutory deadline is before settlement, and the maximum penalty for getting it wrong is 165 penalty units, about $28,495.

This is one of the most common last minute panics we see in conveyancing. The pool was never certified, the certificate lapsed years ago, or nobody realised the inflatable pool in the backyard counts. Here is exactly how the rules work, in the order people actually need them.

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What is a pool safety certificate in Queensland?

A pool safety certificate is the document confirming your pool barrier complies with the Queensland pool safety standard. The form itself is a Form 23.

Only a pool safety inspector licensed by the QBCC can issue one. Your builder cannot. Your pool guy cannot. Your building and pest inspector cannot. If the inspection fails, you get a Form 26 pool safety nonconformity notice instead, setting out what has to be fixed.

How long is a pool safety certificate valid for in QLD?

It depends on whether the pool is shared:

• Non-shared pool (a standard house or a townhouse with its own pool): valid for 2 years.
• Shared pool (a body corporate pool, a resort pool, a pool serving more than one dwelling): valid for 1 year.

The certificate has to be current at settlement, not current when you listed. We see certificates expire mid campaign more often than you would think, particularly on a long settlement.

What is a Form 36 notice of no pool safety certificate?

A Form 36 is the notice you give a buyer to tell them the property has a regulated pool and there is no current pool safety certificate. It is the legal alternative to producing a certificate, and it is what keeps the sale moving when certification is not going to happen in time.

Two things have to happen, and people routinely only do one of them:

• The buyer must be given a copy of the Form 36.
• The Form 36 must also be lodged with the QBCC.

Giving the buyer a copy and forgetting the QBCC lodgement is the single most common error we correct on these files.

Can you sell a house in QLD without a pool safety certificate?

Yes. You have two lawful paths:

• Sell with a certificate. Get the pool inspected, obtain the Form 23, and give the buyer a copy before settlement.
• Sell without one. Give the buyer a Form 36 before settlement and lodge it with the QBCC. The obligation to certify then passes to the buyer, who gets 90 days from settlement.

What you cannot do is say nothing. Silence is the version that creates liability.

When does the seller have to give the buyer the Form 36?

The statutory deadline is before settlement. Section 246ATF of the Building Act 1975 requires an owner proposing to sell to give the purchaser either a copy of the pool safety certificate or a notice in the approved form, before settlement under the contract of sale. Where the pool is not shared the Form 36 also goes to the QBCC commissioner. Where it is shared it goes to the purchaser, the owner of the shared pool and the commissioner.

Do not use the whole runway. The QBCC guidance for auctions is that the Form 36 should be available to prospective buyers before a contract is entered into, and there is a practical reason to apply that to every sale. A buyer who learns about an uncertified pool after signing has a grievance, a reason to renegotiate, and a reason to look hard at everything else in your contract. Disclosed up front it is a non event. Disclosed at settlement it is a dispute.

What happens at auction if there is no pool safety certificate?

At auction the owner or their agent must make the Form 36 available to all prospective bidders before a contract is entered into. Not just the winning bidder. Everybody who might sign.

Practically, that means the Form 36 sits in the contract pack alongside the disclosure documents. If it is not there and the property sells under the hammer, you have an unconditional contract and a compliance gap at the same time, which is the worst combination in Queensland conveyancing because there is no cooling off period at auction.

How long does a buyer have to get a pool safety certificate after settlement?

90 days from settlement.

If you buy a property on a Form 36, that clock starts the day the property becomes yours. Ninety days sounds generous until you factor in booking an inspector, failing the first inspection, ordering fencing or gate hardware, and getting a re-inspection. On an older pool it is not unusual for the fix to be a full barrier replacement.

Our advice to buyers is blunt: book the inspection in the first fortnight, not the last. If it fails, you want the remaining 75 days to fix it, not 5.

For a shared pool the obligation sits with the body corporate rather than the individual lot owner, so a buyer in a scheme with an uncertified pool needs to be asking the committee, not an inspector.

What happens if you miss the 90 days?

You are then an owner of a regulated pool without a current certificate, which is an offence. Local councils and the QBCC both enforce in this space, and the QBCC audits the register. The realistic risk is not that somebody knocks on the door on day 91. It is that the gap surfaces at the worst possible moment: when you go to sell, when you go to lease, or when something happens in the pool.

How do I check the QLD pool safety register?

The QBCC pool safety register is public and free. You search it by address or by lot and plan, and it will tell you whether the pool is registered and whether there is a current pool safety certificate recorded against it.

Use it before you make an offer, not after. Thirty seconds on the register tells a buyer whether they are about to inherit a 90 day obligation, and tells a seller whether the certificate they think they have is actually recorded.

A word of warning on the register: it records what has been lodged. If a pool was never registered in the first place, it will not appear, and an absent pool is not the same as a compliant pool.

Does my pool have to be registered with the QBCC?

Yes. If you own a regulated pool it must be on the QBCC pool safety register, and there are fines for pools that are not. Registration and certification are two separate obligations, and having one does not give you the other.

What counts as a regulated pool in Queensland?

Broadly, a structure capable of being filled with water to a depth of 300mm or more and used primarily for swimming, wading, paddling or the like.

That definition is wider than most people assume. It picks up:

• Spas and swim spas
• Wading pools
• Portable and inflatable pools, if they hold 300mm or more
• Plunge pools

The inflatable pool bought for the kids in December is the one that catches sellers out. If it holds 300mm of water it is a regulated pool, and it needs a compliant barrier, registration and certification like any other.

What is the difference between a shared and a non-shared pool?

A non-shared pool serves one dwelling. A house with a pool in the backyard. Certificate valid 2 years.

A shared pool serves more than one dwelling: a body corporate pool, a resort or hotel pool, a pool in a duplex used by both sides. Certificate valid 1 year, and the obligation generally sits with the body corporate.

The distinction matters at settlement because it changes both the validity period and who you chase for the certificate. Buying into a scheme, the seller cannot personally produce a certificate for a pool they do not control.

Do I need a pool safety certificate to rent out my property?

Yes, and the rules are stricter than for a sale. A lessor must not lease premises with a regulated pool unless there is a current pool safety certificate. There is no Form 36 workaround for a lease.

You also have to give a copy to the tenant, and the certificate has to be displayed as near as practicable to the pool entrance.

If you are buying an investment property on a Form 36 and planning to have a tenant in it immediately, those two obligations collide, but only where the pool is not a shared pool. For a pool that serves a single dwelling, section 246ATJ of the Building Act 1975 gives you 90 days after settlement to obtain a certificate, while section 246ATG separately makes it an offence to enter into a lease unless a certificate is already in effect. The 90 days is not a defence to the leasing offence. Sort the certificate first, or make it a condition of your contract.

A shared pool in a community titles scheme works differently. There the certification duty sits with the pool owner, usually the body corporate, under section 246ATK, and a lot owner can enter into a lease without a certificate provided the Form 36 notice goes to the tenant, the body corporate and the QBCC. If you are buying a unit rather than a house, do not assume the 90-day buyer obligation applies to you.

What do real estate agents have to do?

If you are acting on a property with a regulated pool, your exposure is real, so the checklist is short and worth following:

• Establish at listing whether the pool is registered and whether a current certificate exists. Search the register yourself.
• If there is no certificate, get the Form 36 prepared and lodged with the QBCC before you put a contract in front of anybody.
• At auction, put the Form 36 in every contract pack, not just the successful one.
• Do not tell a seller the buyer can “just sort it out after settlement”. The buyer does carry the certification obligation, but the Form 36 is the seller’s obligation and the penalty for missing it lands on the seller.
• Check whether the pool is shared. It changes the validity period and who holds the obligation.

What are the penalties?

Maximum penalties for pool safety offences sit in the Building Act 1975 and are expressed in penalty units. A Queensland penalty unit is $172.70 from 1 July 2026 and is indexed every 1 July, so dollar figures in older articles are already out of date. At the current value, 165 penalty units is about $28,495 and 20 penalty units is about $3,454.

• Selling without giving the certificate or a Form 36 before settlement (s246ATF) – 165 penalty units, about $28,495
• Leasing premises with no certificate in effect (s246ATG) – 165 penalty units
• Buyer failing to get a certificate within 90 days of settlement (s246ATJ for a non shared pool, s246ATK for a shared pool) – 165 penalty units
• Failing to display or give a copy of a shared pool certificate (s246ATH) – 165 penalty units
• Interfering with a pool barrier (s245U) – 165 penalty units
• Failing to give notice of an existing regulated pool, that is, not registering it (s246AR) – 20 penalty units, about $3,454

Enforcement sits with local councils and the QBCC. Note that the 90 day obligation on a buyer is a real offence with a real maximum, not a courtesy. If you become a party to a QCAT proceeding about the barrier during that 90 days, the period is extended by the number of days you were a party.

These are maximums, not what a court hands out on a first offence, and they are taken from the Building Act 1975 as in force at August 2026. Many figures circulating online are recycled from superseded penalty unit values, so check the section rather than trusting a number in an article, including this one.

The pool safety traps we see every week

• The certificate expired mid campaign. Two years feels long. A three month campaign plus a 60 day settlement does not leave much room if the certificate was already 20 months old at listing.
• The Form 36 went to the buyer but never to the QBCC. Half the job is not the job.
• The Form 36 was left until the week of settlement. Legal that late, but by then the buyer has committed on the assumption the pool was compliant, and you have handed them a reason to renegotiate.
• The pool was never on the register. Common on older properties and on pools built by a previous owner without approval. Registration and certification are separate problems and you have both.
• The fence complied in 2005. The standard has moved. Gate hardware, climbable objects near the barrier, and non-climbable zones are where most inspections fail.
• Nobody counted the spa. Or the inflatable pool. Or the plunge pool that came with the landscaping.
• Buying into a body corporate with an uncertified shared pool. You cannot fix it yourself. Raise it before you go unconditional, not after.

Should a buyer walk away from a property with no pool safety certificate?

Usually not. A Form 36 property is not a defective property, and it is often a negotiating point rather than a dealbreaker. What it is, is a cost and a deadline you should price in before you sign.

Get a rough quote for certification and any likely barrier work during your building and pest window. If the fence is 20 years old and the gate swings the wrong way, you are not looking at a $150 inspection, you are looking at a fencing job. That is a number worth knowing before the contract goes unconditional, not after.

How Empire Legal handles pools on a conveyance

On every Queensland contract we look at, we check whether there is a regulated pool, whether it is on the register, and whether a current certificate exists. If there is no certificate, we make sure the Form 36 is prepared, given and lodged in the right order, and we tell buyers the day their 90 days starts.

Fixed fee, no surprises, and no referral fee from any pool inspector, which is why we will tell you honestly when the pool is not the problem on your contract.

Talk to Empire Legal about your contract before you sign it. That is the point at which pool problems are cheap to fix.

This article is general information only and is current at 7 August 2026. Pool safety obligations and penalty unit values change. It is not legal advice and does not take your circumstances into account.