Govt aims to increase the quality and speed of new builds

The Government has unveiled a self-certification scheme for builders, to make it easier and faster to build homes.

The scheme – which still needs to go through a consultation process – has two pillars:

1. Qualified building professionals, such as plumbers, drainlayers and builders, will be able to self-certify their own work, for low-risk builds, without the need for an inspection. This will bring them in line with electricians and gasfitters.
2. Businesses with a proven track-record – for example, major developers who build hundreds of near-identical homes a year – will be able to go through a more streamlined consent process.

Building professionals are already subject to quality assurances, such as the need to be licensed, keep records of their work and upload their details to a publicly searchable database. Under the new scheme, there will be additional safeguards, including:

• A clear process for customers to remedy poor work.
• Strengthened qualification requirements for building professionals.
• Strict disciplinary actions for careless or incompetent self-certifiers.

Govt wants to cut red tape

Construction Minister Chris Penk said while the current building consent system was designed to protect consumers from defective building work, it had become too bureaucratic, adding unnecessary costs and delays to the process.

“At the moment, a single-story basic home might go through 10 or more separate inspections. This is clearly too many and the cost-benefit has become unbalanced,” he said.

“The self-certification scheme will be restricted to low-risk, basic residential dwellings. We know from international evidence that most defective building work happens in complex large developments – we want inspectors to focus their resources on this kind of work. 

“Under the current consent settings, councils and their ratepayers are liable for all defective work. This naturally creates a highly conservative approach to consenting, which further slows the process. A model where building practitioners shoulder more of the risk should incentivise better quality work and lower the liability risk for ratepayers.”