Property Report: Worries over self certification

The proposal for self-certification stems from the Rules Reduction Task Force which concluded the Resource Management Act and the Building Act create unnecessary compliance issues.

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Home builders may soon be able to sign off on their own work without a council inspection if Local Government Minister Paula Bennett gets her way. But the proposal does not sit well with Home Owners and Buyers Association president John Gray.

"We have real concerns at the prospect of allowing builders to self-certify because even under the current regime -- where there is a degree of oversight by councils when they do their building inspections -- many defects are still being missed," claims Gray.

He says the number of builders in the industry who could be trusted with self-certifying their work are "few and far between". If the Government decided to keep self-certifying builders on simpler projects, Gray fears it would create a magnet for the cowboys to the detriment of inexperienced new home buyers.

Gray doesn't have much faith in the council inspectors since they were the ones who approved the leaky homes to begin with.

He also believes Paula Bennett's floating of a self-certification scheme is ill-informed.

She said that we've moved on a lot since the leaky building crisis ... We have not. We are still building leaky homes today. As for cladding products, she ... is poorly informed on that as well.

While he concedes the building process needs streamlining, he does not believe self-certifying will save time or money. He says the delays are in the building consent phase..

The proposal for self-certification stems from the Rules Reduction Task Force which concluded the Resource Management Act and the Building Act create unnecessary compliance issues. The Task Force received almost 2000 submissions pointing to so-called "loopy laws". Many of those pertained to the building industry.

Certified Builders Association chief executive Grant Florence believes self-certification for builders is a great idea.

"Anything that increases productivity and helps affordability for home buyers has to be looked at closely," he says.

All members of Certified Builders are required to be trade qualified. Florence says this should be the minimum benchmark of any builder self-certifying their work.

"Electricians and plumbers self-certify and they've been doing that for some time. There is a place for builders to do that."

No details of the proposal have been ironed out yet. But Florence expects money could be saved by reducing local building inspection fees. These are part of the building consent fees which vary from council to council. Some councils require around 11 inspections for a new home construction. Florence thinks self-certification can help reduce this. It could also encourage some tradespeople to up-skill to be qualified to certify building work.

Florence says Auckland Council has been proactive in managing issues around building inspections but some local councils have sign-off rules and sign-off procedures that can be seen to be overzealous.

I guess they're looking at protecting their own risk and protecting the risk of the ratepayer.

Florence is realistic and concedes the public will likely have concerns about builders certifying their own work. He says builders will need to have the competency, experience and the trade qualification for them to even be considered to be allowed to certify their work.

"The leaky building and watertight thing is something we should never forget ... But I do think that the industry has tended to have been tarred with that whole brush."

-- David Maida is a freelance writer at DavidMaida.com