A Building Information Certificate (BIC) is a council-issued document that limits certain council enforcement actions over pre-existing unauthorized building work. It doesn’t grant retrospective development consent. You apply through the NSW Planning Portal, and eligible applicants include owners, purchasers under contract, their solicitors or agents, and public authorities.
TL;DR:
- A Building Information Certificate only protects against certain enforcement actions for pre-existing unauthorized building work and does not provide development approval.
- The application process is entirely online through the NSW Planning Portal, requiring a recent survey, property details, and supporting documents, with costs varying by council.
- An inaccurate or outdated survey is the biggest risk, and any discrepancies can trigger investigations or enforcement even before the application is processed.
- If refused, councils must provide reasons, and applicants should consider remedial work or court appeals, but resubmission after corrections is often faster.
- During property transactions, a BIC impacts settlement timelines and contract conditions, making sequencing and accurate survey data crucial before applying.
Table of Contents
- Who Can Apply for a Building Information Certificate?
- How Do You Apply for a Building Information Certificate?
- What Documents, Fees, and Timelines Should You Expect?
- What Does a BIC Actually Protect You From?
- What Are the Biggest Risks When Applying for a BIC?
- What Happens If Council Refuses Your BIC Application?
- Why Does a BIC Matter During a Property Sale?
- An Editorial Take on the BIC Process
- How Acdnsw Can Help With BIC-Related Property Risk
- Sources
Who Can Apply for a Building Information Certificate?
Not everyone connected to a property can lodge a BIC application. The eligible categories are fairly tight, and understanding them matters if you’re trying to work out whether you’re the right person to submit one, or whether you need someone else, like a solicitor, to do it on your behalf.
According to Service NSW, you can apply if you are:
- The property owner, or someone acting with the owner’s written consent
- A purchaser under a contract of sale, or that purchaser’s solicitor or agent
- A public authority that has given the owner notice of its intention to apply
Most requests come from two directions. Buyers doing due diligence before settlement want certainty about a granny flat, deck, or garage conversion that shows up in a building inspection report but not in council records. Sellers, meanwhile, sometimes apply proactively once they suspect unapproved work exists, hoping to resolve the issue before it becomes a bargaining chip during negotiations. A BIC only makes sense for work that already exists. If you’re planning new construction, you need a development application, complying development certificate, or construction certificate instead, not a BIC.
How Do You Apply for a Building Information Certificate?
The entire process runs through the NSW Planning Portal now. Paper applications to individual councils are gone. Here’s the sequence most applicants follow, based on the Planning Portal’s own submission guidance:
- Register or log in to your NSW Planning Portal account.
- Select “New Application” and choose “Building Information Certificate” from the certificate types.
- Enter the property details, including lot and DP numbers from the title.
- Add applicant details, whether that’s you, a solicitor, or an agent acting on your behalf.
- Upload supporting documents, most importantly the survey report and plan.
- Provide payer details for the council fee.
- Complete the declarations confirming the information is accurate.
- Submit the application and pay the fee online.
One-step trips people up more than any other: confirming your local council actually processes BIC applications through the portal before you start uploading documents. Most do, but a handful still require a supplementary email or direct contact for certain document types. Check your specific council’s portal page first.
Before you even open the portal, do a quick pre-lodge check. Pull the current title details, confirm you have (or can obtain) a recent survey, and gather any existing building plans, occupation certificates, or compliance documents council might already hold. Walking in prepared cuts weeks off the process.
Pro Tip: Order your survey before you touch the portal, not after. A survey booked at the last minute can take two to four weeks depending on the surveyor’s workload, and council will not progress your application without one for residential land.
What Documents, Fees, and Timelines Should You Expect?
For residential-zoned land, you generally need an original or certified copy of a survey report and plan. Other zones may require a survey report without the same plan format. Councils commonly ask for additional material too:
- Building plans and specifications for the structure in question
- Any existing compliance certificates, including BASIX certificates where relevant
- Photographs or additional evidence if the survey doesn’t fully capture the disputed structure
Fees are set individually by each council and paid through the portal at lodgment, so the cost genuinely varies depending on where the property sits. There’s no single statewide number to quote. Processing timeframes are set by regulation, but they stretch out fast if council issues a request for further information. A straightforward application with a clean survey moves far quicker than one where council has to chase missing documents or clarify boundary discrepancies.
What Does a BIC Actually Protect You From?
A BIC’s legal weight is narrower than most people assume, and that’s exactly where confusion causes expensive mistakes.
A BIC is generally the only avenue available to regularize building work already carried out without approvals. It prevents certain council enforcement actions and applies indefinitely to matters arising from pre-existing unauthorized work, though protections tied to fair wear and tear are limited to seven years.
That distinction between indefinite and seven-year protection trips up a lot of readers of the Planning Portal’s own guidance on post-consent certificates. A BIC shields you from certain council orders and civil proceedings tied to the structure’s existence at the time of issue. It does not certify the structure is safe, does not replace a construction certificate, and does not amount to development consent under any interpretation. Section 289 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2021 sets out exactly what the certificate must contain and confirms the portal as the mandatory lodgment channel, but the regulation itself treats the BIC as a risk management tool, not a building approval.
What Are the Biggest Risks When Applying for a BIC?
Here’s something most guides gloss over: applying for a BIC is, in effect, telling council that unapproved work exists on the property. That’s the whole point of the process, but it also means a poorly prepared application can backfire.
The survey report is the single highest-risk document in the entire file. If it’s inaccurate, outdated, or inconsistent with what’s actually built, council may open an investigation rather than simply process your request. Structural safety concerns or serious non-compliance can also trigger enforcement action even while your application is pending, particularly if an inspector flags something during the assessment.
- Get a current survey from a registered surveyor, not one from years ago.
- Have a preliminary legal or conveyancing review before lodging.
- Treat the application itself as a disclosure to council, and prepare accordingly.
- If you’re mid-contract, make sure the sale agreement’s conditions reflect the outstanding BIC status.
Pro Tip: If a survey discrepancy shows up before you lodge, resolve it with a second survey or a structural assessment first. Submitting a flawed document to council rarely goes unnoticed, and once it’s flagged, you can’t unflag it.
What Happens If Council Refuses Your BIC Application?
Councils don’t get to refuse silently. If your application is knocked back, council must give reasons and typically indicate what remedial work or additional information would change the outcome.
- Review the refusal reasons and determine whether remedial building work or additional documentation would resolve the issue.
- Consider an internal review request with the council if the refusal appears to rest on a factual error.
- If internal review fails, you can appeal to the Land and Environment Court within the statutory window.
- Engage a conveyancer or solicitor early if the refusal touches on contract obligations tied to a pending sale.
Resubmission after remedial work is often the fastest path back to a clean outcome, especially compared to a court appeal, which takes considerably longer and costs more.
Why Does a BIC Matter During a Property Sale?
Buyers ask for a BIC before settlement more often than sellers volunteer one, and that imbalance shapes how negotiations play out. A pending or refused BIC can delay settlement, reduce a buyer’s price ceiling, or become a condition precedent written directly into the contract.
- Buyers use a BIC request to confirm risk exposure before committing to exchange.
- Sellers sometimes lodge one early to remove uncertainty and keep the sale on schedule.
- Conveyancers draft disclosure clauses and negotiate remedial timelines when a BIC is outstanding.
This is exactly the kind of detail that belongs in a certificate of title review and broader planning property report check, not something discovered after contracts are signed.
An Editorial Take on the BIC Process
Most guidance on this topic treats the BIC like a formality, a box to check before settlement. That framing undersells the risk. The certificate exists precisely because unauthorized building work is common in New South Wales, and the application process itself is a disclosure mechanism, not a rubber stamp.
The conventional advice, “just apply and see what happens,” ignores how much weight rests on the survey report. A weak survey doesn’t just slow things down; it can convert a routine application into a council investigation. That’s the part most first-time applicants underestimate.
If there’s one priority worth taking from this, it’s sequencing. Get the survey right before you touch the portal. Get legal eyes on the contract terms before you exchange. The BIC itself is straightforward paperwork. What surrounds it, the survey accuracy, the timing relative to settlement, the wording of contract conditions, is where outcomes actually get decided.
— Matthew
How Acdnsw Can Help With BIC-Related Property Risk
If you’re navigating unauthorized structures during a property transaction in New South Wales, the practical value isn’t the application form itself. It’s knowing when to lodge, what the survey needs to show, and how to draft contract conditions that protect you either way.
Acdnsw’s conveyancers review contracts, run title and planning searches, and liaise directly with council on BIC-related matters as part of standard property conveyancing services across NSW. If you’re a buyer weighing whether to proceed on a property with an unresolved BIC, or a seller trying to get ahead of a disclosure issue, get in touch through Acdnsw to arrange a contract review before you sign anything.
Sources
For application-specific questions, consult Service NSW’s BIC guidance, the NSW Planning Portal, or your local council directly.
- Apply online for a building information certificate | Service NSW
- ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING AND ASSESSMENT REGULATION 2021 – REG 289 Building information certificates–the Act, Div 6.7
- Submit Building Information Certificate Application (PDF) | NSW Planning Portal