Smoke alarms when a home is sold

The rule at transfer

Regulation 56 places the duty on the owner who is handing the house over. In its own words:

“If an owner of a dwelling transfers the ownership of it, the owner must, to the extent practicable, ensure that at the time of the transfer … (a) the dwelling has smoke alarms installed so that the dwelling and the alarms comply with the requirements of regulation 60(2) …”

Building Regulations 2012 (WA), regulation 56(1). Based on content from the Western Australian Legislation website at 8 October 2026. For the latest information on Western Australian legislation, visit www.legislation.wa.gov.au. © State of Western Australia, CC BY 4.0

The fine written beside that duty is $5,000 (as at October 2026). Building and Energy notes that it is local governments that may act where compliant alarms are not installed or maintained.

Two words carry the weight. A “dwelling” here is a house (a Class 1 building), a unit in an apartment building, or a Class 4 dwelling, the single home inside a non-residential building. And an owner “transfers” the home only when both things have happened: the owner has signed the instrument of transfer, and the buyer has taken possession under it or in anticipation of it.

What “compliant” means on the day

Regulation 60(2) sets the tests, and each one is judged on the day of transfer.

• Placed to the code of their day. The house meets the Building Code’s deemed-to-satisfy provisions on smoke alarms that applied when the alarms were installed. Where they went in at different times, the code that counts is the one in force when the last necessary alarm was fitted.
• In date. Each alarm has not reached the expiry date printed on it or, if it carries none, was installed less than 10 years before the transfer.
• Working. Each necessary alarm is in working order.
• On mains power where the code required it. An alarm that had to be mains-powered when installed is permanently connected to the mains. A sealed 10-year battery that cannot be removed is accepted only in the two cases set out further down.

Building and Energy adds a catch: an alarm powered through a home security system may not pass, because some systems can be unplugged at a power point and some feed the alarm 12 volts, not the 240-volt mains.

Where the alarms go in a house

For a detached house, townhouse or villa unit, Building and Energy’s guidance puts an alarm in every hallway that serves bedrooms or, where there is no hallway, in the space between the bedrooms and the rest of the house. Each storey needs one as well, even a storey with no bedrooms that holds only a garage, laundry or bathroom.

On a ceiling, an alarm sits at least 300 mm in from where the ceiling meets the wall. Mounted on a wall instead, it sits between 300 mm and 500 mm below the ceiling line. Under a sloping ceiling, it goes 500 mm to 1500 mm from the highest point. The spacing keeps it clear of the still, hot air that gathers in corners and at a ceiling’s peak.

Today’s code links alarms so that when one sounds, they all do. A home changing hands does not need that interconnection if it was built under a building licence issued under the old Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act before building permits replaced licences, if its building permit was granted on an application made before 1 May 2015, or, where no permit or licence was needed, if building began before that date.

Battery alarms, and when the City decides

There are two routes to a battery alarm, and both need a 10-year battery that cannot be removed.

The first needs no approval: there is no hidden space to run the cable and no suitable alternative spot. Building and Energy’s examples are a concrete ceiling and a flat roof with no ceiling space.

The second runs through the local government, which may approve a battery alarm if mains connection would cause a sufficient structural problem, or another problem whose cause is outside the owner’s control. The fee is set by the local government and cannot exceed $197.00 (as at October 2026), and an application left undecided for 35 days is taken to be refused. For the part of Canning Vale inside the City of Canning, that is the City, which lists an alternative smoke alarm application among the forms its building team accepts online.

If the alarms are not there at transfer

1. Before the transfer

   The duty is the owner’s, under regulation 56. A buyer who plans to knock the house down can give the owner a statutory declaration, before the transfer, that they intend to demolish it within six months of the transfer day; the owner then has a defence.

2. The new owner’s window

   If the former owner did not comply, regulation 57 binds the new owner to bring the alarms up to standard within 12 months of the transfer day, or within 6 months where a demolition declaration was given. The fine is again $5,000 (as at October 2026), and it is a defence that the house was demolished within that time. Building and Energy puts the demolition case plainly: if the house still stands after the six months, the new owner must install every alarm the house needs.

3. The cost

   Where no demolition declaration was given, the new owner may recover the reasonable cost of compliance from the former owner as a debt, in a court with jurisdiction to hear it.

The safety switch rules give a new owner a much shorter window, two months, set out in RCD safety switches when a home is sold.