Commercial Fit-⁠Out Building Permits — Melbourne & Victoria

Most commercial fit-outs need a building permit, and most are on a deadline — a lease start, an opening date, a landlord waiting on handover. This page is for the tenant, shopfitter or landlord who needs the permit issued properly and the occupancy permit in hand before the doors open.

Cornerstone is a building surveying practice working across Melbourne and all of Victoria, issuing permits across Victoria for every class of building work — residential, commercial and industrial. For fit-outs, we assess shop, office, warehouse and industrial premises against NCC Volume One, issue the building permit, inspect the work and issue the occupancy permit or certificate of final inspection. One surveyor from first drawings to sign-off, and a fixed fee quoted before you commit.

When you need a permit

Alterations. Under the Building Act 1993, building work needs a permit unless the Building Regulations 2018 exempt it, and the exemptions for altering a commercial building are narrow. New partition walls and ceilings, a kitchen, toilets or showers, changes to an exit or the path to it, and anything touching fire-rated walls, doors or services will generally need a permit. Paint, floor coverings and loose joinery usually don’t.

Change of use. A building’s occupancy permit states what it may be used for and its NCC classification. Turning a shop into a café, a warehouse into a gym or an office into a medical suite changes the requirements for exits, fire safety, amenities, access and ventilation. That usually means a building permit for the upgrade works and a new occupancy permit for the new use, even when the works are small. A planning permit for change of use is a separate council matter; we’ll flag it if it applies.

Essential safety measures. Commercial occupancy permits list the essential safety measures in the building — exit signs, emergency lighting, extinguishers, sprinklers, fire doors, path-of-travel widths — and under Part 15 of the Building Regulations 2018 the owner must maintain them and prepare an annual report. A fit-out that adds or moves any of these changes the list.

Access. Altering a commercial building brings the Disability (Access to Premises — Buildings) Standards into play. New or relocated amenities generally need an accessible toilet, and the path from the main entrance to the altered part of the building is generally assessed against AS 1428.1. We flag this early because it affects the layout.

Warehouses and industrial. Mezzanines, offices built inside the warehouse, staff amenities, structures supported on racking and dangerous goods stores all need assessment. We handle warehouses (Class 7b) and factories (Class 8) regularly, including the structural and fire-separation questions a mezzanine raises.

What we need from you

Floor plans showing the existing and proposed layouts, a site plan, the existing occupancy permit if the landlord has it, a short description of the proposed use, and engineering for any structural work such as a mezzanine or a new opening. Food premises also need the kitchen exhaust and grease arrestor details. No drawings yet? Send what you have and we’ll tell you what’s missing.

What it costs

Fit-out permits are quoted as a fixed fee covering assessment, the building permit, inspections and the occupancy permit or certificate of final inspection. Staged jobs and anything needing a fire engineer or a performance solution are scoped before we quote, so nothing is added later.

Things that catch people out

• A lease that makes the tenant responsible for the permit, discovered after the shopfitter has started.
• A strip-out that removes a fire-rated wall or blocks an exit before anyone has assessed it.
• An older building with no occupancy permit or essential safety measures list on file — that has to be sorted first.
• Adding a toilet without an accessible one.
• A mezzanine the supplier said was exempt. It isn’t — it adds floor area, which takes it outside the alteration exemption in Schedule 3 of the Building Regulations 2018.
• Food premises: council’s health registration runs alongside the building permit, not instead of it.