The Government is looking at strengthening requirements for building professionals, including penalties, to ensure Kiwis have confidence in their biggest asset, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk said.

“The Government is taking decisive action to make building easier and more affordable," said Penk.

"If we want to tackle our chronic undersupply of houses that is slowing the economy down and locking families out of home ownership, we must do things differently."

Penk said reforming the way we consent homes and removing barriers to overseas building products will strip out delays and drive down costs so we can get more homes built at a more affordable price.

"However, for this to succeed we must ensure that we have qualified tradespeople doing the work, standing by it and being accountable if things go wrong," said Penk.

“The trade-off for reducing oversight for low-risk work like granny flats is that we have adequate safeguards in place to hold careless or incompetent individuals to account. 

“The current registration and licensing regimes are not working as well as they could and while the vast majority of tradespeople are competent, highly skilled professionals, a small minority are holding the sector back.  

“Building consent authorities have told me that the penalties in the Building Act for tradespeople who knowingly cut corners are not enough to deter that behaviour and are not proportionate to the cost of remediating defected work for the consumer who is left out of pocket. 

“This lack of robust requirements also has an enormous flow on effect which means councils are more likely to be overly risk-averse out of fear that their ratepayers will be liable for paying the bill as the last man standing. 

“For Kiwis to have confidence in building work we need to ensure the oversight of building professionals is fit for purpose and fair. That’s why the Government is looking at strengthening registration and licensing regimes with a focus on: 

• Lifting the competence and accountability requirements for building professionals
• Improving consumer protection measures in the Building Act to provide the right support for consumers
• Ensuring regulators have the right powers to hold people to account with a focus on licensing, complaints, and disciplinary processes
• Introducing new penalties to deter bad behaviour. The Government is currently consulting on creating a new offence in the Building Act for deliberately hiding non-compliant building work in the context of remote inspections. 

“These changes will be critical in supporting the Government’s agenda to make it easier and more affordable to build, and is particularly important when we place more trust in qualified individuals and reduce oversight from third parties as we have done through our NZ First-National commitment to allow granny flats and other small structures up to 60sqm to be built without a building consent.  

“Lifting the competence of building professionals will also help support the ACT-National commitment to explore allowing builders to opt out of a building consent if they have insurance as this is one of the enablers for insurance companies to have confidence in taking on building work. 

“This is all part of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and go for housing growth so Kiwis can get ahead.”

As part of the consultation on increasing the use of remote inspections the Government is consulting on creating a new offence to deter deceptive behaviour during a remote inspection with a penalty of $50,000 for individuals and $150,000 for businesses.

This work to strengthen requirements for building professionals complements work currently underway by the Government to combat phoenixing which is a particular problem in the Building Industry.