About Nathan Maries, Building Inspector
I'm Nathan Maries, the building inspector behind Melba Building Inspections. Carpenter by trade, 23 years in construction since I started at 16 in 2003, and nine of those years as a project manager. I do every inspection myself, across Greensborough, Eltham, Diamond Creek, Ivanhoe, Montmorency, Watsonia and the rest of Melbourne's north-east.
The short version of why that matters: I have built the things I now inspect. Ten years of renovations, extensions and fit-outs under my own building company, then six years running repair and upgrade work inside occupied retirement villages. Between the two, I have seen how houses fail, and I have seen how they get patched so they look like they never did.
One thing I will be straight about up front. I am not a registered builder. My registration is in progress and I am not going to imply otherwise while it is. Victoria does not require registration to carry out a pre-purchase inspection at all, which is exactly why it is worth asking what an inspector has actually built. Mine is set out below, held and unheld.
Twenty-three years, in order
I left school and started in construction at 16. Here is the whole run of it, and what each part gives you when I walk through a house.
| Years | What I was doing | What it gives you in a report |
|---|---|---|
| 2003–2007 | Apprentice carpenter, then qualified. Framing, roofing, fit-off. | I read a frame and a roof structure for what it is, not for what the plaster and render are hiding. |
| 2007–2017 | Ran my own building company, Melba Building Services. Renovations, extensions, fit-outs and factory work. Hundreds of jobs, $5,000 to $350,000. | I have priced, built and stood behind this work, so when I flag a defect I can tell you roughly what putting it right involves. |
| 2017–2023 | Project manager at Diamond Property Developments. Retirement living, insurance repair work and schools. | Insurance work is failure work. Six years of it teaches you what genuinely goes wrong in a building, and how often. |
| 2007 and 2026 | Certificate IV in Building and Construction, then a Diploma of Project Management. | The paperwork behind the site experience, and the qualifications I am carrying into builder registration. |
| 2026 | Melba Building Inspections. Every inspection done personally. | One person walks your property, writes it up, signs it and answers the phone afterwards. |
Ten years running my own building company
Melba Building Services ran from 2007 to 2017. Renovations, extensions, fit-outs and factory work, hundreds of jobs, anywhere from $5,000 to $350,000. Never new builds, and that matters here. My whole working life has been spent opening up existing buildings and finding out what the last person did.
That is the job of an inspection. You are not assessing a house on paper, you are reading what has already been done to it. A patched cornice, one repainted ceiling in an otherwise tired house, a bathroom floor tiled over the old tiles, a rear addition where the new roof meets the original. I know what is usually sitting behind each of those, because for ten years I was the bloke pulling them apart.
I closed the company voluntarily in 2017, when my kids arrived and the hours stopped working.
Six years working inside occupied retirement villages
From 2017 to 2023 I was a project manager at Diamond Property Developments, delivering across retirement living, insurance repair and schools. The retirement side is the part people are surprised by. I delivered projects inside more than 20 occupied Keyton (Lendlease) villages across Melbourne, around six Stockland Levande villages, and two Aveo villages.
Occupied is the important word. You are working in somebody's home while they are living in it, to an operator's standard, with residents watching every day of it. It teaches you two things worth having. First, what the common failures actually are, because you see the same causes turn up village after village. Second, how a repair gets presented once it is finished, which is a different skill from doing the repair.
That is why retirement village work is a separate service here, with its own checklist for entry condition, unit condition and the parts of a village contract that quietly turn into a bill later.
What I hold, and what I don't
Ask any inspector this before you book them. Here is mine, in full.
| Credential | Where I'm at |
|---|---|
| Qualified carpenter | Held. Apprenticeship started 2003, trade qualification completed. |
| Certificate IV in Building and Construction | Held, completed 2007. |
| Diploma of Project Management | Held, completed 2026. |
| Registered domestic builder | In progress. I am not a registered building practitioner today, and this page changes the day that changes. |
| Licence to carry out pre-purchase inspections in Victoria | Not a thing. Victoria does not license pre-purchase property inspectors, so the only real test is what the person has built and repaired. |
| Timber pest, electrical, plumbing, mechanical and thermal work | Carried out by licensed tradespeople I arrange, not by me. |
The houses I'm looking at around here
Melbourne's north-east is not one housing market. It is roughly three, and they fail in different ways.
- Greensborough, Watsonia, Macleod, Bundoora and Heidelberg. Post-war expansion stock. Watsonia got its primary school in 1959 and its high school in 1962, Greenhills primary opened in 1962, and the housing went up around them. Mostly triple-fronted brick veneer and timber-framed homes on generous blocks with terracotta or concrete tile roofs. I am looking at original switchboards and wiring nobody ever upgraded, roof spaces with no sarking and perished pointing, timber stumps under the older floors, and every rear extension added since the 1990s where the new roof ties into the old one. That junction is where the water usually gets in.
- Eltham, Montmorency, Diamond Creek and Hurstbridge. Mudbrick and earth-wall houses are a genuine part of the stock here. Montsalvat has been building in earth since 1934, Alistair Knox started his first mudbrick house in 1947, and hundreds of houses followed across the district. They are lovely and they are perfectly maintainable, but they need their capping, render and eaves kept up, and they do not forgive poor drainage at the base of a wall. I assess them on their own terms instead of against a brick veneer checklist.
- The bush blocks right across Nillumbik. Steep sites, cut and fill, retaining walls doing structural work that nobody has looked at in twenty years, subfloor ventilation, and stormwater that has to end up somewhere. Much of the shire also sits under a Bushfire Management Overlay, so where a house was built or extended to bushfire construction requirements, I want to see whether the last renovation left them intact. Ember screening, gutters and decks are the usual casualties.
A fair bit of this area sits on reactive clay, so seasonal footing movement and stepped cracking through brickwork turn up regularly. Common is not the same as harmless. The useful part is telling you which cracks are a house moving with the seasons and which ones are a footing failing, and that judgement comes from having repaired both.
About those reviews
You will see a 4.7 out of 5 from 24 independent Word of Mouth reviews on this site, and I want to be accurate about what they are. They were left by clients of Melba Building Services, my building company, roughly between 2013 and 2017. They are reviews of building work, not of inspections. One is from an architect who used me on his own projects, which I am still quietly pleased about.
Melba Building Inspections started in 2026, so the inspection reviews are still being earned. When there are enough of them to mean anything, they will go up next to the old ones and both will be labelled for what they are.
How I work, and how to get hold of me
Every inspection is done by me. The person who walks your property is the person who writes the report, signs it and picks up the phone afterwards when you have a question about page seven. I would rather take on fewer jobs and do them properly than hand you to a contractor with a template.
Reports are prepared with reference to AS 4349.1, the Australian Standard for pre-purchase inspections of residential buildings. Timber pest work references AS 4349.3. I write it up and get it back to you as quickly as I can, because you are usually reading it against a deadline you did not set.
- Phone: 1300 489 150
- Email: nathan@melbabuildinginspections.com.au
- Post: PO Box 109, Montmorency VIC 3094
- ABN: 12 504 713 859
- Service area: Greensborough, Eltham, Diamond Creek, Ivanhoe, Watsonia, Montmorency, Doreen, Bundoora, Heidelberg, Rosanna, Macleod and Hurstbridge
Common questions
Is Nathan Maries a registered builder?
No, not yet. Builder registration is in progress and Nathan does not hold registration as a building practitioner at the time of writing. He ran his own building company, Melba Building Services, from 2007 to 2017 and holds a Certificate IV in Building and Construction from 2007, but that is not the same as registration and he will not present it as such. This page will be updated the day the registration comes through.
Does a building inspector in Victoria have to be licensed?
No, Victoria does not require a licence or registration to carry out a pre-purchase property inspection on a residential building. That surprises most buyers. It means the only meaningful test of an inspector is their actual construction background, so it is worth asking any inspector what they have built, repaired and managed before you book them.
Who actually carries out the inspection?
Nathan does every inspection himself. He walks the property, writes the report, signs it and takes the call afterwards if something in it needs explaining. Where a job needs an electrician, plumber, mechanical trade or timber pest inspector, he arranges licensed tradespeople to do that part, because those are licensed trades and he does not perform them.
Which suburbs does Nathan Maries inspect?
Nathan covers Melbourne's north-east: Greensborough, Eltham, Diamond Creek, Ivanhoe, Watsonia, Montmorency, Doreen, Bundoora, Heidelberg, Rosanna, Macleod and Hurstbridge. He lives and works in the area, which is the reason he can talk about post-war brick veneer stock, Eltham mudbrick houses and the steep Nillumbik bush blocks with any confidence.
What standard are the reports written to?
Reports are prepared with reference to AS 4349.1, the Australian Standard covering pre-purchase inspections of residential buildings. Where timber pest work is included, it references AS 4349.3. The report sets out what was inspected, what was not accessible on the day, and what was found, with photos of anything worth knowing about.
Are the 4.7 star Word of Mouth reviews for building inspections?
No, they are for building work. The 24 independent Word of Mouth reviews averaging 4.7 out of 5 were left by clients of Melba Building Services, Nathan's building company, roughly between 2013 and 2017. Melba Building Inspections started in 2026, so inspection reviews are still being built up. Both will be labelled clearly on the site so nobody is misled about which is which.
Related
- pre-purchase building inspections across Melbourne's north-east
- retirement village inspections
- the full list of inspections and prices
Book an inspection
Call and you will speak to Nathan, not a call centre. Same-day reports on most jobs.
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