Every pool and spa in Victoria that holds water deeper than 300mm has to be inspected every four years and issued a Form 23 Certificate of Barrier Compliance. The certificate has to be lodged with your council within 30 days of issue. Miss the cycle and the fines start at hundreds of dollars per month; let it run long enough and the council can issue a non-compliance notice you have to clear before settling, refinancing, or in some cases insuring.
Most homeowners hear 'Form 23' for the first time when council writes to them. By then they have four weeks to book an inspection, address whatever fails, and lodge the certificate. We do this conversation often enough to know exactly what the inspector is looking at — and that is most of the problem solved before you book.
The first thing an inspector checks is the gate. Self-closing, self-latching, opening away from the pool, with the latch at least 1.5 metres above the ground. If the gate has dropped on its hinges, the latch is below height, or the closer can no longer fully shut the gate from any open position, that is an immediate failure. Gates fail more Form 23 inspections than any other single item. The fix is usually new hinges and a new closer, not a new gate.
The second is the non-climbable zone. AS 1926.1-2012 says nothing climbable can sit within 900mm outside the fence or 300mm inside it — and the inspector measures both. A barbecue against the fence, a planter box, a pool pump, even a thick tree limb that grew over a fence will trip it. The cleanest fix is usually to move whatever is climbable, not to extend the fence. Inspectors are not interested in your landscaping intent; they measure.
The third is gaps. Anywhere the fence meets the ground, a wall, a post, the latching strike — the gap must be 100mm or less. Slabs heave over time; rendered walls shift; the four-year cycle gives that movement enough room to break compliance. We see this most often on the bottom edge of a frameless fence where the spigots sit on a paver line that has lifted with frost or tree roots.
The fourth is hardware corrosion. Coastal homes are particularly exposed — anything that is not 316 marine-grade stainless will, over four years of salt spray, start to bloom rust. The inspector looks for signs that hinges and latches are still functioning to spec, not just that they exist. A hinge with visible rust pitting will fail even if the gate still closes.
Beyond those four headline items, the inspector also confirms that the barrier is the minimum 1.2 metres high at every point, that the fence stays compliant in stages where the ground level changes, and — for new installs — that the Form 23 has been issued and lodged. Existing fences are inspected against the standard that applied when they were built, not the current one, unless they have been substantially modified.
What we do before any of our clients book a Form 23 inspection is a standalone audit — sixty minutes on site, written report in five business days, every item assessed against the standard, with photographs. The audit identifies whatever would otherwise fail and gives you a clear scope to fix or to leave. Rectification, where the report identifies it, is credited against the audit fee.
We do not certify our own work. Form 23 is issued by an independent council-registered inspector, not by an installer. Our role is to make sure the fence will pass when that inspector arrives — and to give you the documented record proving it.
If your four-year clock is running and you do not know where you stand, the audit is the start. If you have just bought a property and the previous Form 23 is lapsed or missing, that is also the start. The cycle is uncompromising, but the failures are nearly all predictable — and predictable means avoidable.
Written by Jason Ah-Young, Director of Maison Glass & Aluminium. For advice on a specific project, book a consultation.
