Frequently asked
questions

Lodgely is an AI-powered compliance review platform built specifically for the Victorian building industry. It automatically analyses architectural drawings against relevant building regulations, planning provisions, and local council overlays — helping builders, draftspeople, and designers identify potential issues before lodging a permit application.

The platform is designed for residential builders, architectural draftspeople, building designers, and project managers who regularly deal with building permits and town planning applications in Victoria. It's especially useful for volume builders running multiple projects simultaneously, where manual compliance checks can consume significant time.

No. Lodgely is a pre-lodgement tool — it helps you identify and resolve likely compliance issues before your drawings go to a registered building surveyor or council. A registered building surveyor must still be engaged to formally assess your project and issue any required building permit under the Building Act 1993 (Vic).

Think of it as a highly thorough pre-flight check that reduces the back-and-forth and saves everyone time.

Lodgely currently covers the National Construction Code (NCC) for Class 1 and 10 residential buildings, the Building Regulations 2018 (Vic), Victoria Planning Provisions (VPP) including common overlays such as Neighbourhood Character Overlays, Vegetation Protection Overlays, and Bushfire Management Overlays, as well as ResCode requirements under Clause 54 and 55.

We are continuously expanding coverage as regulations are updated and as we move into additional building classes.

The platform accepts PDF files. For each project you'll need to upload:

Your drawing set — site plan, floor plans, elevations, and sections. The more complete the set, the more thorough the review. Support for DWG and IFC formats is planned for a future release.

VicPlan planning certificate — identifies the zone and overlays that apply to the site. Export one free for any Victorian property at VicPlan.

Zone schedule PDF — the specific schedule for your zone (e.g. GRZ Schedule 1, NRZ Schedule 2). Download it free from Planning Schemes Online.

Overlay schedule PDF(s) — one PDF for each overlay that applies to the site (e.g. NCO Schedule 3, VPO Schedule 1, DDO Schedule 5). Also available free on Planning Schemes Online.

Lodgely reads all documents directly — so the review is based on the actual gazetted provisions, not approximations.

Most standard residential reviews are completed within a few minutes of upload. More complex projects with multiple overlays or large drawing sets may take slightly longer. You'll receive a notification when your report is ready.

Your report includes a summary of identified compliance issues, the specific regulation or provision triggered, the location within your drawings where the issue was detected, a severity rating (critical, moderate, or advisory), and suggested remediation notes to guide your next revision.

Yes. You can upload revised drawing sets at any stage and re-run the compliance check to confirm that flagged issues have been resolved. This is particularly useful when coordinating revisions between drafting, engineering, and town planning.

Lodgely is trained on Victorian building regulations and planning provisions and is designed to flag issues that commonly cause delays at the permit stage. However, like any automated tool, it works best as a complement to professional judgment rather than a substitute for it.

We continually improve accuracy through feedback from building surveyors, draftspeople, and town planners. If you encounter a missed issue or a false positive, please use the feedback tool in your report — it directly informs our training.

Our compliance team monitors updates to the NCC, Building Regulations, and VPP on an ongoing basis. When significant changes are introduced — such as the 2022 NCC energy efficiency amendments — the platform is updated and all users are notified via email.

Yes — and it does so by reading the actual planning documents you upload, rather than relying on approximations.

For each project you upload your VicPlan planning certificate (which identifies the zone and overlays), plus the specific zone schedule and overlay schedule PDFs for your site. These are free to download from Planning Schemes Online and contain the council-specific provisions that vary between councils and schedules.

Lodgely reads all uploaded documents directly — so if Knox's NCO Schedule 3 has different setback requirements to Boroondara's NCO Schedule 2, the review reflects that precisely. Coverage extends to all 79 Victorian councils.

We offer plans to suit individuals and teams of all sizes. Our Starter plan is suited to sole traders and small practices, while our Builder plan is designed for volume builders managing multiple concurrent projects. Enterprise pricing is available for larger organisations. Full details are on the Pricing page.

Yes. Your first month is completely free, with no credit card required. That gives you time to run real projects through Lodgely and see the quality and depth of the reports before you commit to a plan.

All plans are month-to-month with no lock-in contracts. You can cancel at any time from your account settings and will retain access until the end of your current billing period.

Your drawings are private to your account. We do not share, sell, or disclose your project documents to any third party. All files are encrypted in transit and at rest. Our staff only access uploaded files in limited circumstances — such as when investigating a reported technical issue — and only with your permission.

All data is stored on servers located in Australia, in compliance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles. We do not use offshore data storage for customer project files.

Project files and reports are retained for the duration of your active subscription plus 90 days following cancellation, giving you time to export your data. You can manually delete any project at any time from your dashboard.

You can reach our support team via the live chat widget in your dashboard, or by emailing [email protected]. We aim to respond to all queries within one business day.

Yes. Builder and Enterprise plan customers can book a complimentary onboarding session with our team to walk through the platform and configure it for your typical project types and council areas.