What we look for in Mundijong, and why it differs from the suburb next door. 40.3 km from the CBD, 21.6 km from the coast, postcode 6123.
Mundijong was originally Jarrahdale Junction, sitting where the railway to the Jarrahdale timber mills met the main south-west line. It is the seat of government for the Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale, despite the shire being named after other places. Barely twelve hundred and fifty people across eighteen square kilometres.
That small township is about to change. A Mundijong-Whitby Development Contribution Plan and a West Mundijong Industrial Development Contribution Plan both apply, meaning substantial planned residential and industrial development is coming.
Buying here is buying into a place with a documented future rather than a settled present. What is planned for the land around a property is more consequential than most things an inspection of a building will reveal, and it is public information. Read it.
Confirming what contributions attach to a particular lot is also worth doing, since a Development Contribution Plan can affect what a development costs.
The rail junction history left older properties near the corridor, and any of genuine age needs assessing on its own terms rather than against a modern standard.
As a small rural township, many properties are unsewered on septic or aerobic systems with bore or tank water. Long driveways. Sheds and outbuildings forming part of the purchase.
Rural land in this shire is used mainly for agriculture and equine activities, so horse properties are common and the stables frequently represent real value.
A rural township surrounded by farmland spreads exposure across whole properties rather than concentrating it at a house perimeter.
The rail junction is the local wrinkle. Ground along an old corridor was reworked, filled and cut over more than a century, and buried timber from sleepers, sidings and mill traffic can remain in it.
Beyond that, farmland surrounds the township. Sheds on soil. Yard timbers in the ground. Windbreaks holding colonies close to buildings.
Effluent systems keep a patch of ground damp near the house year round.
On older township buildings the subfloor comes first where floors are timber. Barriers on anything of age are generally absent rather than expired. Settle the scope in writing before anyone attends, because on a rural holding which structures are included is the commonest source of disagreement.
A township holding is not a quick job. Dwelling, sheds, water, effluent, boundaries. That circuit takes a morning and it produces both reports rather than one. Reported under AS 4349.1 and AS 4349.3.
Read both Development Contribution Plans before buying. They set out what is coming to this township, and in a place this small the difference between now and ten years hence will be substantial.
Buyers want the bore, the treatment system and the outbuildings assessed as specific items. On equine properties the stables warrant a proper look rather than a walk past, since they are working structures carrying real value and real timber in the ground.
Where building is happening, staged inspections cover site works and drainage while they remain visible. Once backfilled, neither can be assessed without excavation.
Mundijong sits on the Guildford Formation — alluvial clay and sandy clay laid down by the Swan and Canning systems. This is the reactive ground. Clay here shrinks and swells with moisture, which is what puts stepped cracking through brickwork and takes doors out of square between seasons. Articulation joints matter on these sites, and a great many older houses do not have them where a current standard would want them.
What that means in practice, on a house in Mundijong:
Landform is assigned from the suburb's position on the Swan Coastal Plain rather than from a site soil test. It tells you what to expect, not what you have. A site classification to AS 2870 is a different exercise and a different report.
Whitby and Byford sit on the same ground as Mundijong, so the footing behaviour and the drainage problems tend to repeat across all of them. If you are comparing houses across those suburbs, you are largely comparing the same site conditions.
Mardella is 4.3 km away but sits on the Bassendean dune system; Cardup is 4.8 km away but sits on the Bassendean dune system; Serpentine is 6.9 km away but sits on the Bassendean dune system; Oldbury is 8.9 km away but sits on the Bassendean dune system. That is the useful thing about this part of Perth: the ground can change inside a few kilometres, and with it what an inspection is looking for.
On site classification: any soil zone quoted for a suburb is indicative, inferred from geography rather than surveyed. A real AS 2870 classification comes from geotechnical work on your actual block and can differ from the one next door. We report what we observe; we do not read your soil class off a map.
The inspection is visual and non-invasive, over the readily accessible areas, reported to AS 4349.1. Our inspectors physically enter the roof space, as long as there is sufficient access. Report within 24 hours of the inspection.
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Flat fee, the same in Mundijong as anywhere: $440 inc. GST for a pre-purchase building inspection, or $616 inc. GST with the timber pest scope added in the same visit. Full price list →
Well inland at 21.6 km from the coast, out in Serpentine - Jarrahdale, Mundijong is far enough from the water that salt takes a back seat. The same fee goes into footings, drainage and the ground movement typical inland, and the tiled roof is checked for delignification only near heavy traffic.
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Yes. Our inspectors physically enter and inspect the roof space, as long as there is sufficient access to do so safely. Where access is restricted, the report says so plainly rather than implying we saw more than we did.
At 21.6 km inland, Mundijong carries lower coastal-salt exposure, so delignification is not the first thing we would expect. It remains possible near heavy arterial corridors or industrial emissions.
Within 24 hours of the inspection itself, not 24 hours from booking. On a pre-purchase or pre-settlement job that timing is the whole point, because your leverage disappears once you are committed.
We would rather you checked than took our word for it. These are the bodies that actually hold the records and set the rules:
Tell us about the property and what you need. We'll come back to you with a firm quote and a time.
PERTH