Swimming pool & spa registration FAQs

Drownings are the most common cause of preventable death for children under the age of five.

The number of drownings and high levels of safety standards non-compliance indicates that past regulation has not been successful.

The Victorian Government's new legislation ensures that registered pools and spas will receive regular inspections by a registered building practitioner. This is intended to improve the safety of pools and spas, particularly for children.

Property owners must register any pool or spa that can hold water to a depth greater than 30cm. If a property contains both a swimming pool and a spa, they will need to be registered separately unless they are installed in the same enclosure or form part of each other.

This includes:

• in-ground and above ground pools and spas
• inflatable and relocatable pools (that can hold a water depth of more than 30cm)
• indoor pools and spas
• children's paddling and wading pools
• spas, jacuzzis, hot tubs and swim spas
• portable spas

This does not include:

• structures such as bird baths, fish ponds, water fountains
• spas inside a building used for personal hygiene
• inflatable swimming pools that can not hold water to a depth greater than 30cm
• water supply or storage tanks
• dams, rivers, creeks and lakes

Yes. While Council may have recently inspected your safety barriers, the changes to the Building Act require all swimming pool or spa safety barriers to be reinspected and certified by the required dates.

You must register your pool by the 1st of November 2020 (The State Government extended this deadline in May).

After registering you must engage a private building surveyor or inspector to certify that your pool safety barriers are compliant by the due date. The due date to lodge your pool or spa barrier certificate of compliance depends on when your pool or spa was constructed and certified. We will provide you with the original construction date of your pool or spa within 60 days of registering.

Your pool or spa must be inspected every four years. This involves:

• Engaging a private building surveyor or building inspector to certify your pool or spa safety barriers are compliant with safety standards
  
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• Lodging a certificate of pool or spa barrier compliance with Council

After you have registered your swimming pool or spa, we will check to confirm:

• the date of construction of the swimming pool
• the relevant standard that the safety barrier must comply with
• the due date of when your safety barriers must be certified as compliant

The timeframe to provide this information will depend on the age of the swimming pool or spa and may take up to 30 days.

Once the swimming pool or spa has been registered with Council, it will remain registered until the swimming pool or spa is removed and the owner applies to take it off the register. You do not need to renew your registration.

Inspections and the submission of certificates of compliance must be completed regularly. The time period for this will be updated here once released by the Victorian Government.

If you fail to register or lodge a certificate of pool or spa barrier compliance by the due date, you may receive a fine. This fine will be issued separately to each and every owner of the property.

The fine for not applying to register your pool or spa is $1652.20

The fine for not lodging a certificate of compliance for your pool or spa safety barrier is $1652.20

Your pool or spa safety barrier can be inspected by any building surveyor or building inspector registered with the Victorian Building Authority.

Need help finding an inspector? Use the VBA's practicioner directory.

We encourage you to check the compliance of your pool and spa safety barriers. However, you will still need to engage a private building surveyor or building inspector to certify your barriers are compliant and lodge a certificate of compliance with Council.

You can check your barriers using the Victorian Building Authority's self-assessment checklist.

Where there are only minor issues that are not an immediate risk to life or safety your private building surveyor or inspector must give you a notice with the details of non-compliance. You will then have no more than 60 days to bring the barriers into compliance before a re-inspection.

Where your private building surveyor or inspector identifies issues of non-compliance that pose a significant and immediate risk to life or safety your private building surveyor or inspector must lodge a certificate of pool or spa barrier non-compliance with Council.

Council may then issue you with a barrier improvement notice with a date the certificate of pool or spa barrier compliance is required to be lodged and may then issue an Infringement Notice with a fine of $1652.20 if the certificate is not lodged by the due date.

Alternatively Council may issue you with a Building Order or Emergency Order requiring the barriers to be brought into compliance. If you fail to comply Council may prosecute you for failure to comply with the order, which may result in the Magistrate imposing fines of several thousand dollars.

Under the proposed regulations you will need a Building Permit to rectify the issues of non-compliance identified by your private building surveyor or inspector unless the works do not involve:

• Replacement of sections, parts or components of the barrier that when combined, comprise more than 50 per cent of the existing length of the barrier; or

  
  

• Replacement of posts or footings of the barrier; or

  
  

• The use of the materials in the barrier that are not commonly used for the same purpose as the material being replaced in the barrier; or

  
  

• An increase or decrease in the length of the barrier, or the size of the area enclosed by the barrier; or

  
  

• Replacement of any part of a retaining wall that forms part of the barrier.

A property owner will need to satisfy Council that their swimming pool/spa no longer exists or is no longer capable of containing water to a depth of greater than 300mm.

This may be done by undertaking one of the decommissioning options detailed below to restrict the swimming pool/spa is no longer capable of containing water to a depth of greater than 300mm.

Once Council receives this information an inspection of the property will be required to confirm the removal or decommissioning of the swimming pool and/or spa. 

What constitutes decommissioning?

To decommission your swimming pool or spa, you need to remove aspects that make the structure a swimming pool or spa, such as:

• complete removal of the swimming pool or spa
• remove its ability to contain water to a depth of greater than 300mm
• remove its access, such as access ladders
• remove any filtration system
• fill the excavation area with clean soil endemic to the site and compacted in layers (It is strongly recommended you obtain written advice from an engineer prior to undertaking the decommissioning of the pool/spa in order to determine which fill material should be used based on the site and soil conditions on your property).

Relocatable pools, above ground pools and spas

• To decommission a relocatable/above ground pool it must be completely dismantled and removed.
• To decommission an above ground spa, it must be completely removed. 

Inground swimming pools/spas 

Option 1 – Complete removal of inground pool/spa

Where the pool/spa is located within 2m of the boundary, or another building

A demolition permit to demolish the pool/spa is required to be obtained where the pool/spa is located within 2m of a boundary or another building as its demolition may have an adverse effect on adjoining properties and/or buildings.

Where the pool/spa is located greater than 2m from the boundary, or another building

Once the pool/spa has been removed, the excavation will need to be backfilled with appropriate soil for the site (as determined by a geotechnical or structural engineer) and compacted in layers with a maximum depth of 300mm (or as determined by an engineer taking site conditions into account).

Option 2 - Inground pool/spa left in situ and buried

1. Cut at least two holes at least 500 mm x 500 mm in the deep end of the pool/spa
2. Remove debris from cut outs
3. Remove filtration system and access ladders
4. Fill the pool excavation with appropriate back-fill material compacted in layers with a maximum depth of 300mm (or as determined by an engineer taking site conditions into account).

It is strongly recommended you obtain written advice from an engineer prior to undertaking the decommissioning of the pool/spa to determine which fill material should be used based on the site and soil conditions on your property.

You will be required to keep Council informed as to how you are to decommission your swimming pool or spa. This will require photos and may also require inspections at certain stages of the decommissioning of your swimming pool or spa.

Note: Decommissioning in-ground or permanent swimming pools/spas that remain in situ can be problematic if any future construction and/or re-development is proposed on the site in the future.

In some areas, impervious soil types or high ground and perched water tables may make holing pools problematic and advice from a suitably qualified structural or hydraulic engineer may be needed to see if this is a viable option.

Any demolition material is to be removed from site and taken to an approved disposal site.

A relocatable or temporary pool or spa that is erected temporarily is not required to have a Building Permit if it’s within an area enclosed by an approved barrier. 

Under State Government laws, the temporary pool or spa is required to be registered with Council if it is left erected for more than 3 consecutive days.

The walls of an above-ground swimming pool or spa can form part of the barrier if they are at least 1.2m high from the ground level, and do not have a surface that allows a child to gain a foothold and climb into the swimming pool or spa.

Any objects that could be climbable by a young child, such as a pool ladder, projections more than 10mm, wall braces and pool filter and pump equipment are required to be properly fenced.

It is the property owner's responsibility to register the pool or spa and lodge a certificate of pool or spa barrier compliance with Council.  The owner of the property must also take all reasonable steps to ensure that the barrier is properly maintained.

Tenants should contact the owner or their agent to request that the pool or spa barriers be checked if they have concerns that they may not be compliant. As the occupier of the house the tenant is responsible for ensuring that the barrier is operating effectively at all times and gates and doors to the pool or spa area remain closed except when a person is entering or leaving the pool or spa area.

The costs to register your pool or spa is set by the Victorian Government.

Initial registration costs

• The registration and research fee is $84.90 (includes research fee of $50.70).The research fee only applies to pools or spas constructed before 1 June 2020.

After your pool or spa has been registered, you must lodge a certificate of compliance or non-compliance by the due date provided to you by Council.

The certificate of compliance or non-compliance is provided to you by the registered Building Surveyor or Inspector. Costs to engage a Building Surveyor or Inspector will vary.

The cost of lodging a certificate will depend on whether your pool or spa complies with the applicable safety standards.

If your pool or spa complies with the required safety standards

• Lodgement fee for certificate of swimming pool or spa barrier compliance - $21.90

 If your pool or spa does not comply with the required safety standards

If your pool or spa barrier does not meet the required safety standards, a building surveyor or building inspector may: