Consumer Rights for Services in Australia: Sections 60 to 62

Services bought from a business, from a haircut to a home renovation, carry three statutory guarantees under sections 60, 61 and 62 of the Australian Consumer Law: due care and skill, fitness for a particular purpose, and supply within a reasonable time.

This article addresses the services guarantees under Subdivision B of Division 1 of Part 3-2 of the ACL, which are sections 60 to 62 (section 63 is a scope-exclusion, not a guarantee), and the related remedy provisions (sections 267 to 269). For goods, see consumer guarantees in Australia and faulty goods and your right to a refund.

Due care and skill: the baseline guarantee for every service

Section 60 guarantees that a service supplied in trade or commerce will be rendered with due care and skill. This guarantee applies without the consumer needing to have told the supplier anything in advance about what they wanted the service to achieve; it is simply a promise that the work will be done competently, to the standard expected of a reasonably skilled provider of that kind of service. A tradesperson who does careless, sloppy or incompetent work, even if the underlying job gets technically finished, can breach this guarantee.

Fitness for a particular purpose

Section 61 goes further than section 60 where the consumer has made a specific purpose or desired result known to the supplier, expressly or by implication, before the service is provided. Section 61(1) guarantees the services, and any product resulting from them, will be reasonably fit for that disclosed purpose. Section 61(2) separately guarantees that where a consumer makes known a specific result they want to achieve, the services will be of a nature and quality that might reasonably be expected to achieve it. Section 61(3) removes this guarantee where the circumstances show the consumer did not rely on, or it would have been unreasonable to rely on, the supplier's skill or judgment. Section 61(4) removes it entirely for professional services supplied by a qualified architect or engineer, reflecting that architects and engineers are separately regulated professionals.

Supply within a reasonable time

Section 62 guarantees services will be supplied within a reasonable time, but this guarantee only applies where the contract did not fix a time for supply, and the time was not to be worked out in a way the consumer and supplier had agreed. Where a contract genuinely fixes a completion date, or a method for setting one, section 62 has no separate work to do; the contract's own terms govern instead. What counts as "reasonable" depends on the type of service and the circumstances, including factors outside the supplier's control, such as weather delaying an outdoor repair.

What section 63 actually excludes

Section 63 is frequently, and wrongly, described as a fourth services guarantee. It is not. Section 63(1) removes Subdivision B (all of sections 60 to 62) from applying to two categories of contract: a contract for transporting or storing goods for the purposes of a business, trade, profession or occupation carried on by the person for whom the goods are transported or stored, and a contract of insurance. Section 63(2) then narrows the first exclusion back: it does not apply if the consignee of the goods is not themselves carrying on a business, trade, profession or occupation in relation to the goods, a provision inserted in response to the High Court's 1994 decision in Wallis v Downard-Pickford (North Queensland) Pty Ltd. In short, section 63 removes coverage for certain commercial freight, storage and insurance arrangements; it does not add any guarantee of its own, and citing "the services guarantees, sections 60 to 63" as a uniform block misstates what the section does.

How a breach of a services guarantee is remedied

The remedy structure for services runs on a parallel but distinct set of provisions from goods. Section 267 lets a consumer act where a services guarantee is breached: for a fixable, non-major failure, the consumer must first require the supplier to fix it within a reasonable time, and if that fails, can either arrange their own fix and recover reasonable costs, or terminate the contract for the supply of the services. For an unfixable or major failure, section 267(3) lets the consumer immediately terminate the contract, or claim compensation for the reduction in value of the services below what was paid. Section 268 defines a major failure for services using its own five-limb test: the services would not have been acquired by a reasonable, fully informed consumer; they are substantially unfit for their common purpose and cannot easily be fixed; they are unfit for a disclosed particular purpose and cannot easily be fixed; they fail to achieve a result the consumer made known and cannot easily be fixed to achieve it; or the supply creates an unsafe situation. As with goods, section 268(2) allows two or more failures to add up to a major failure cumulatively. Section 269 then governs what happens once a services contract is terminated, generally releasing the consumer from paying for the unperformed part while preserving a right to recover for services already paid for but not properly delivered. Section 267(4) also allows a claim for reasonably foreseeable consequential loss, in addition to these remedies.

Services that change during an ongoing contract

Where a consumer has an ongoing services arrangement, such as a gym membership or a subscription-style contract, and the business materially changes what it provides during that period, the guarantees can still be engaged. A change that is genuinely material to the service originally agreed can trigger the major-failure remedies in sections 267 and 268, while a change that leaves the business still substantially providing the originally agreed service is less likely to.

When a job involves both goods and services

Many real transactions mix goods and services, such as a tradesperson supplying and installing a hot water system, or a mechanic supplying parts as part of a repair. In practice, the goods guarantees in sections 51 to 59 apply to the physical parts or materials supplied, while the services guarantees in sections 60 to 62 apply to the workmanship and the way the job was carried out. A hot water system that itself is defective may separately breach the acceptable quality guarantee for the unit, while a poorly carried out installation may separately breach the due care and skill guarantee for the service, and a consumer can potentially rely on either or both depending on where the actual problem lies. Working out which guarantee has been breached, and which remedy pathway therefore applies, generally starts with identifying whether the problem is with the product itself, the work done on it, or both.

Reasonable time depends on the type of service

What counts as a reasonable time under section 62 is not a fixed number of days; it is assessed against the type of service, industry norms, and factors genuinely outside the supplier's control. A builder delayed by weather, or a repairer waiting on a backordered part from a manufacturer, may not breach section 62 even though the job took longer than a consumer expected, provided the delay is genuinely attributable to circumstances outside the supplier's reasonable control rather than the supplier's own inaction. Where a contract does fix a specific completion date, or a method for calculating one that both parties agreed to, section 62 does not independently apply, because the contract's own terms take over that role.

This page provides general legal information about consumer rights for services under the Australian Consumer Law, verified 21 July 2026. It is not legal advice about your own purchase or dispute. For advice on your situation, consult a legal practitioner admitted in the relevant Australian state or territory.

For the equivalent framework for goods, see faulty goods and your right to a refund and consumer guarantees in Australia. Return to the Australian Consumer Law hub for the full picture.