Knowledge/Accreditation and audits/Everything the regulator can do to you, from a warning up

Everything the regulator can do to you, from a warning up

The Essential Services Commission (ESC) can start with a warning or conditions on your accreditation. Then come improvement and prohibition notices, suspension on the spot before you've had your say, and cancellation with a ban on reapplying. At the top, an order to hand back certificates. Don't comply and it's 600 penalty units, plus one per certificate not handed back.

Source: Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007 Authorised Version 024 Last checked 24 September 2026 Trade reference. Not advice on an individual job.

Lowest rung: Section 40Aa warning, or conditions on your accreditation
Suspension: Section 14ABon the spot, before you're heard
Forced surrender: 600 penalty unitsplus 1 per certificate, s40
At $209.10 a unit: $125,460plus $209.10 per certificate, 2026-27

The ladder, from mildest to harshest

Victorian Energy Efficiency Target (VEET) Act 2007, version 024. Penalty units are shown as individual / company (body corporate). The unit is $209.10 for 2026-27 and resets every 1 July.
Section	What the ESC can do	Penalty if you don't comply
s40A	Give you a warning, or put conditions on your accreditation	n/a
s40AB	Improvement notice, ordering you to fix something that's causing, or likely to cause, harm to health, safety or property	60 / 240 penalty units
s40AC	Prohibition notice	60 / 240 penalty units
s14AB	Suspend you on the spot, before you've had your say	n/a
s14	Suspend or cancel your accreditation, and ban you from applying again	n/a
s40	Order you to surrender (hand back) certificates	600 penalty units plus 1 per certificate not surrendered
Part 6A of the Act	Civil penalties, including s20(8)	varies
s55R	Publish audit information	n/a

Two rungs deserve more than a table row, because they don't work the way people expect.

Forced surrender, and the excuse that won't work

Section 40 lets the ESC order you to surrender certificates. Fail to comply and it's 600 penalty units, plus one penalty unit for every certificate you don't surrender. At the 2026-27 unit of $209.10, that's $125,460 plus $209.10 per certificate.

And here's the part that catches people. Not having enough certificates left is no excuse (s40(6)). Having already sold them doesn't get you out of an order to surrender them.

Put that next to the March 2026 cases, where tens of thousands of certificates were refused registration. The certificates can be gone from your account and you can still be ordered to hand them back.

Suspension can happen before you're heard

Section 14AB lets the ESC suspend you straight away, before you get to tell your side. You get your say afterwards, not first.

That matters a lot if you install under someone else's accreditation. It means the accreditation you depend on can be switched off overnight, with no warning you'd have seen coming.

Section 20, the list of ways to create a bad certificate

It's broader than most people assume, so here it is in plain terms. You must not create a certificate:

If you're not an accredited person, s20(1)
For a job done before you applied for accreditation, s20(3)
While your accreditation is suspended, s20(4)
Where a valid certificate already exists for the job, or you know someone else has created one, s20(5)
Where you or anyone else has already got a benefit for that job under a prescribed greenhouse gas scheme, s20(6)
With information in it you know is wrong, s20(7)

Then there's s20(8), added in 2025, which covers a certificate with wrong information in it at all. It carries a civil penalty, and it doesn't matter whether you knew the information was wrong. Being wrong is enough.

So most of s20 punishes doing the wrong thing knowingly. One part, s20(8), punishes simply getting it wrong. That's why sloppy paperwork is a legal risk, not just an admin one.

Check
the
date

Every dollar figure here is worked out, not fixed

The Act sets penalty units, not dollars. The penalty unit resets every 1 July and it's $209.10 for 2026-27. Every dollar figure here is that unit multiplied by the count in the Act.

So if you're reading this after 1 July 2027, the counts are still right but the dollars will be low. Quote the penalty unit count, which doesn't move, and look up the current unit value when you need the dollars.

Anyone quoting a bare dollar penalty for a scheme offence without a date next to it is giving you a figure that was true once.

Working out whether to get accredited?

It's a real decision with real numbers on both sides, and most of the people offering advice make money whichever way you go.

Kevin has no stake in which way you go. Ask him.

Who this is for: small and medium HVAC contractors in Victoria. If you're a homeowner after a rebate or a repair, you need a licensed contractor, not us, and yours can point you the right way.

Review date: 1 July 2027. Figures in this area change without much notice and this page carries some that will go stale. Every number above is dated and sourced so you can check it yourself. If you find something out of date here, tell us and we will fix it.