Ask a Perth builder what a demolish and rebuild costs and you get a price for the house. The demolition, the asbestos, the three utility disconnections and the council permit are somebody else’s problem, or a provisional sum, or a line called “site allowance” with a round number beside it.
That half of the project is where budgets go wrong, so this page covers that half. Every fee below is published by the authority that charges it, with the source and the date we read it. For the whole project including the build and the finance, start with our guide to a knockdown rebuild in Perth.
House & Land Co is an independent building advisory. We do not demolish houses and we do not build them, which is why these numbers are on a page rather than behind an enquiry form.
The fees you will pay before anything comes down
All figures read on 8 September 2026 and current for the 2026-27 financial year.
| Item | Amount | Charged by |
|---|---|---|
| Demolition permit, Class 1 or Class 10 building | $121.00 | Your local government, under the Building Regulations 2012 |
| Building Services Levy on that permit | $61.65 where the work is valued at $45,000 or less, otherwise 0.137% | Building and Energy, collected by the council |
| Water service disconnection | $1,332.92 | Water Corporation |
| Electricity supply abolishment | $581.39 incl GST | Your electricity retailer, usually Synergy |
| Permanent gas disconnection, where connected | $1,243.64 incl GST | ATCO |
| Verge bond, refundable | $2,369.00 at Bayswater; $1,000, $2,000 or $4,000 at Stirling by street tree size, plus a $200 inspection fee | Your local government |
The four non-refundable lines come to $3,340.60 on a house with gas connected. That is before the demolition contractor quotes a dollar, and before the building permit for the new home. Sources: Building and Energy Building Act fees, Water Corporation service fees, Synergy demolition, and ATCO’s published meter removal charges.
What the demolition contractor charges
Demolition is quoted per job, not per square metre, and the quote turns on size, construction materials, what can be salvaged, and how easily a truck reaches the block.
No authority publishes a Perth demolition range, and the figures that circulate on builder websites average jobs with nothing in common with yours. What we can set out is what a contractor is actually pricing.
- Storeys. A double storey costs more than a single storey of the same footprint. The work goes up as well as across, and it is slower.
- Construction type. Brick and tile is heavier and slower to separate than weatherboard and iron, and there is more of it to cart away.
- Tipping and separation. Charged by weight and by material stream, so a house of clean recoverable brick prices differently to one with mixed waste.
- What is under the slab. A septic system, a filled-in pool or rubble fill is found on the day and priced then.
- Asbestos. In a pre-1990 home this is separate licensed work, priced on quantity, type and location rather than as a share of the demolition.
- Access and salvage. The two most underestimated, and the subject of the next section.
Get every quote broken into the same lines — demolition, asbestos survey, licensed removal, disconnections, tipping and site clearing — and ask which of them are fixed prices and which are provisional sums. Ask what the price assumes about access and about what is under the slab, and what happens if either assumption turns out wrong. Two quotes that include different things are not two quotes.
The fees in the table above are the part that is already fixed. For the rest, House & Land Co can put you in front of our builder panel and have your own block quoted properly, at no cost to you.
What moves the number
Access is the variable people underestimate. A wide verge, no overhead power across the frontage and room for a truck to turn makes for a cheap demolition. A narrow infill lot with a protected street tree, tight side setbacks and a shared boundary needs smaller machinery, more hours, and sometimes hand demolition of what a machine cannot reach.
Salvage cuts the other way. Jarrah flooring, roof tiles, bricks and fittings have value, and a house worth stripping costs less to remove than one that is only waste. Ask whether your quote assumes salvage and what happens if the contractor cannot on-sell what they expected to.
Removal instead of demolition
If the house is timber-framed and sound, price house removal alongside demolition. A removal company relocates the building whole rather than destroying it, which can reduce or occasionally eliminate the demolition cost. It suits only certain construction types and needs a viable transport route, so treat it as a question to ask rather than a plan to assume.
The council permit, and what your council wants
Section 10 of the Building Act 2011 makes it an offence to carry out demolition work without a permit in effect. The application is form BA5, lodged with your local government as permit authority.
The statutory clock
Regulation 20 of the Building Regulations 2012 gives the permit authority 10 business days to decide a demolition permit, or longer only if you agree in writing. There is no certified or uncertified pathway — that split applies only to building permits. If the authority misses the deadline the application is taken to be refused and the fee becomes a debt recoverable from them.
Ten business days is the legal maximum for the decision, not a promise about the queue. Lodge early, and do not book the demolition contractor until the permit is in hand.
What the three biggest northern councils require
The permit fee is the same statewide. Everything around it is local.
| City of Stirling | City of Wanneroo | City of Bayswater | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demolition permit fee | $121.00 | $121.00 | $121.00 |
| Building Services Levy | 0.137%, minimum $61.65 | Combined minimum stated as $182.65 | 0.137%, minimum $61.65 |
| Verge bond | $1,000, $2,000 or $4,000 by street tree size, plus $200 inspection | Published figures conflict — confirm with the City | $2,369.00, required for all demolition applications |
| Stated timeframe | Not published; statutory 10 business days applies | Up to 10 business days | Not published; statutory 10 business days applies |
| Notable local requirement | Water supply must stay connected until demolition is complete, to dampen dust | Rodent baiting at least seven days before demolition; $500 infringement for a late notice of completion | Septic tanks and leach drains must be decommissioned and removed before demolition |
Two of those are worth reading twice. Stirling’s requirement that the water stay on until the job is finished is the opposite of what most people assume, and it interacts with the disconnection sequence below. And Bayswater requires the verge bond on every demolition application regardless of project value.
Sources: City of Stirling building permit fees and charges, City of Wanneroo demolition information sheet and City of Bayswater fees and charges 2026-27, all read 8 September 2026. Perth spans roughly thirty local governments, so check your own before budgeting.
Councils also generally want notification to the electricity, gas, telephone and water providers, evidence of rodent treatment, consent for work affecting neighbouring land, and the contractor’s details where asbestos is present.
Abolishing the services
This is the most common cause of a delayed demolition, because it runs on the utilities’ timetables.
Gas first, because it is slowest
Where gas is connected, ATCO charges $1,243.64 including GST, prepaid. They process the application in about three business days and generally complete the work within twenty business days of processing. Their terms are explicit that demolition must not begin until they confirm the disconnection has been performed. Twenty business days is a month — lodge this one first.
Electricity, through your retailer
Western Power does not accept this application. Their own guidance directs you to your retailer for a supply abolishment, and their contractor request form blocks the path outright. For most Perth homes the retailer is Synergy, which charges $581.39 including GST and asks for up to five business days. Demolition cannot start until Western Power issues a Disconnected for Demolition Notice.
Synergy publishes a slightly different figure elsewhere on its own site, so confirm the amount when you apply.
Water and sewer
The Water Corporation charges $1,332.92 to disconnect a water or fire service, and publishes no lead time anywhere, so start early. Note Stirling’s requirement above: if your council wants water on site for dust suppression, the disconnection has to be sequenced after demolition rather than before.
Reconnecting later is not cheap. The full cost of a new service applies plus a $221.22 activation fee, and a 20mm domestic water connection is currently $1,876.92. If you are rebuilding quickly, ask the Water Corporation whether the meter should stay.
Sewer is a separate job and not theirs: a licensed plumber must disconnect the building from the sewer main and leave the connection point sealed, at your cost. There is no published Water Corporation fee for sewer disconnection because the work is yours to arrange.
Asbestos
If your Perth home was built before 1990, plan on asbestos until a survey says otherwise. WorkSafe WA notes asbestos was used especially in homes built before 1990, and that the national ban on manufacture, import and use took effect on 31 December 2003.
What WA law requires
Under the Work Health and Safety (General) Regulations 2022, removing more than 10 square metres of non-friable asbestos requires a Class B removal licence, and friable asbestos requires a Class A licence in any quantity. WorkSafe WA advises a homeowner may remove up to 10 square metres of non-friable asbestos themselves — but once you engage any contractor the site is a workplace, so on a demolition this is licensed work.
A clearance is required for all licensed Class A and Class B removal work, and for residential premises the removalist is responsible for arranging it. See WorkSafe WA asbestos licences and asbestos and the law, read 8 September 2026.
One point commonly stated incorrectly: the regulation requiring asbestos to be removed before demolition expressly does not apply to residential premises. What does apply to a house is a pre-demolition inspection by a competent person, who must inform the owner. In practice your council’s checklist is the binding constraint, and most metropolitan councils want the asbestos position settled before they act on the permit.
Who pays
The owner. This is the most common reason a demolition allowance turns out short. Have the survey done before you sign anything containing an allowance, so the allowance is priced against a known quantity rather than a guess.
Nobody publishes a survey or removal price, because there is no standard job to price. A survey is quoted on the size and age of the house and how many samples the assessor has to take. Removal is quoted on how much asbestos there is, what type it is and where it sits — sheet cladding and eaves on a single-storey home is a different job to friable material in a roof space, which needs a Class A removalist in any quantity. Enclosure, access and the clearance inspection move it again.
What you can control is whether the quotes are comparable. Ask for the survey and the removal priced separately, ask the removalist to state the licence class and the quantity they have allowed for, and get it in writing what happens if more is found once work starts. If a builder’s contract carries an asbestos allowance, ask which survey it was based on. If the answer is none, it is a guess with a number beside it.
What happens to the block afterwards
Demolition leaves a cleared site, not a building site. The gap between the two is site works, the most variable cost in the whole project.
The old slab and footings come out, along with paths, driveway, retaining and any pool. What is underneath is genuinely unknown until exposed — an old septic system, a filled-in pool, rubble fill, or a service where nobody expected one.
Before the new slab is designed, an engineer classifies the soil under Australian Standard AS 2870, and the class drives the footing design and therefore the cost. The classes run from A, most sand and rock with little or no ground movement, through S, M, H1 and H2, to E for extremely reactive sites, with P a separate category for problem sites. We set out the full table in our knockdown rebuild guide. Have the test done on your block, after demolition where possible: older suburbs were filled inconsistently and a neighbour’s classification tells you very little.
Fall across the block drives cut and fill and retaining. A new home with a different footprint frequently triggers new stormwater requirements. And the driveway crossover usually has to be rebuilt to current council specification, a line omitted from a surprising number of quotes.
Where quotes differ most
| What you see | What it usually means | What to ask |
|---|---|---|
| “Demolition included” | A provisional allowance set before any survey | Is it fixed or provisional, and what was it based on? |
| “Site works allowance” | A standard figure applied to every job | Was a soil test done on my block? |
| “From $X” | The house only, excluding demolition and site works | What is excluded from this figure? |
| Asbestos not mentioned | Not surveyed, and not priced | Who pays if asbestos is found? |
| Crossover not listed | You will pay for it later | Is the driveway crossover to council spec included? |
The most useful question is the one that forces specifics: what would have to be true on this site for this price to increase, and by how much.
When demolishing is not the right answer
Demolition makes sense when the land carries the value and the house does not. It makes less sense in three situations.
If the home is structurally sound and the real problem is layout, a targeted renovation may get you most of what you want without twelve to eighteen months of rent — we compare the two in knock down rebuild versus renovation.
If the block is large enough to subdivide, the arithmetic changes, because one lot can fund construction on the other. Minimum and average site areas are set by the Residential Design Codes and your block’s R-code, so this has a definite answer. Note the R-Codes are no longer State Planning Policy 7.3: since April 2024 they are a Planning Code under Part 3A of the Planning and Development Act 2005, currently Residential Design Codes Volume 1, Version 3, 10 April 2026.
And if the property sits in a heritage or character area, demolition may be constrained or refused. Check with your local government before spending money on design.
Frequently asked questions
What is the typical cost of demolishing a house in Perth?
The contractor’s price is one part of it. Before that you will pay $121.00 for the demolition permit, $61.65 in Building Services Levy on a smaller job, $1,332.92 to disconnect water, $581.39 to abolish electricity and $1,243.64 to disconnect gas — about $3,340 in fees alone, plus a refundable verge bond. The contractor’s quote sits on top of that, and there is no typical figure for it: a demolition contractor prices your house and your block — storeys, construction type, access, asbestos and what is under the slab — not a Perth average. Get two or three quotes broken into the same lines and read them against the fee stack above.
Do I need council approval to demolish my own house?
Yes. Section 10 of the Building Act 2011 makes demolition without a permit an offence, with penalties escalating to $100,000 for repeat offences. The permit is form BA5, lodged with your local government, and it is separate from the building permit for the new home.
How long does demolition take?
The demolition itself is usually days. The process around it runs to weeks: the gas disconnection alone can take twenty business days after processing, the permit has a ten business day statutory decision period, and asbestos removal, rodent baiting and the final inspection each add time. Plan in weeks and start the gas application first.
Who arranges the service disconnections, me or the builder?
It depends entirely on your contract, and it is worth settling in writing before you sign. Some builders handle the applications within a single demolish-and-build contract; others expect the owner to do it and do not mention it until the demolition is delayed.
Can I salvage materials from the old house?
Usually, if you arrange it before the contractor mobilises. Jarrah flooring, bricks, roof tiles, fixtures and appliances are commonly recovered. Tell the contractor in writing what you intend to keep, because a salvage assumption also affects their price.
Is there stamp duty on a demolish and rebuild?
No. You already own the land, so there is no transfer and no stamp duty — known in WA as transfer duty — on the property. Confirm your own position with your conveyancer.
Get the demolition side priced properly
The demolition half is small relative to the build and disproportionately likely to blow the budget, because it is the part nobody quotes carefully.
If you have quotes and want to know which lines are missing, our team will read them with you at no cost. We are paid by our builder panel, never by you, so we have no interest in which builder you choose. Talk to House & Land Co, or read how we manage a knock down and rebuild end to end.
