Home/Scope changes on live sites
The job is already funded. The scope just changed.
A construction certificate has issued, so the finance is done, the site is active and someone is building. Then the consent gets modified. That is the moment new work appears and standing quotes get revised, and it is a matter of public record the day it happens.
What this is
Five facts and the arithmetic between two of them.
This feed predicts nothing. There is no model, no probability, no confidence band and no forecast anywhere in it, every row is something that already happened, recorded by the council.
Counted from the NSW ePlanning record on 2026-08-05: every determined modification or review of determination on a site whose first construction certificate predates it. 5,272 of those landed in the last twelve months.
Why the timing works
A median of about a year between certificate and change, which puts these mid-build.
The gap runs 344 to 449 days. A build roughly a year in is at or approaching fit-out, and fit-out is where the work-per-job is: electrical second fix, tiling, joinery, painting. A scope change at that point both creates new work and puts existing quotes back on the table.
- You are not calling a landowner who might build one day. You are calling a site with a certificate on it.
- You are not first in the door, but the plans just changed, which is when a second call gets taken.
- The declared cost is on the row, so a $2M change and a $40k one are told apart before you dial.
What we do not know
Three limits, stated here rather than discovered later.
The certificate is the site’s earliest
Where a site carries more than one application, the certificate we show may belong to a different one. So the gap is the age of construction on the site, not necessarily of the work this change affects.
We cannot see what changed
The feed carries no amended scope, and amended certificates are invisible in it, the application-type field is empty on all 283,826 certificate records. Read the council’s own file to learn what actually moved before you quote.
A change is not good news by itself
A modification is evidence the scope changed, which happens for good reasons and bad. What it does establish is that the project reached construction authorisation, which a fresh application does not.
Who buys it
Fit-out trades and subcontractors.
Electricians, tilers, joiners, painters, plumbers and flooring contractors, the trades engaged after lock-up, who cannot use a feed of fresh development applications because those are two years away from needing them.