Getting A Building Consent

Is some of the building work on your property missing a building consent? Without one, you can run into problems when you come to sell your property, both in attracting buyers and achieving a good sale price. 

Under the Building Act, the majority of building work requires a consent (for exceptions, contact your local authority or visit www.building.govt.nz). If you or a previous owner did building work and did not apply for a consent, then a certificate of acceptance is recommended to get it approved retrospectively. 

Certificates of acceptance were included in the Building Act 2004 to retrospectively approve un-consented building work. A certificate of acceptance states that, to the extent an inspection was able to be carried out, the work is compliant with the Building Code. 

What is the difference between a certificate of acceptance and a code compliance certificate? 

A code compliance certificate is issued at the end of the building consent process, once the consented work has passed its final inspection and any other requirements have been satisfied. 

A certificate of acceptance is not equivalent to a code compliance certificate. It provides limited assurance that the council has inspected the completed building work and found no obvious defects. 

What about building work done prior to the old act? 

Prior to the Building Act 1991 coming into force on 1 July 1992, there was no provision to approve building work retrospectively, meaning that any work without a consent would always remain without one. Instead, local authorities dealt with illegal building work with a safe and sanitary report. 

Building work carried out before 1 July 1992 without the appropriate building approval will still require a safe and sanitary report, rather than a certificate of acceptance. You will need to employ someone such as a private building consultant or registered engineer. 

A safe and sanitary report will comment on, rather than approve, the building work's visual compliance. It reports on whether the work is considered safe, whether the building is sanitary and not a health risk. Specific areas of concern could be that the building is subject to dampness or has bad plumbing. 

Your local council will review the safe and sanitary report and, if accepted, the report will be held on the property's file. However, these reports do not serve as an approval of the unauthorised work, merely a reassurance that the building is safe and sanitary. 

If a building is not safe and sanitary, a local authority can serve an enforcement notice on the building's owner requiring them to make it so. 

And for unauthorised work completed more recently? 

A certificate of acceptance is the appropriate means of legalising any work done under the 1991 and 2004 building acts, ie. after 1 July 1992. 

The documentation required for a certificate of acceptance must be comprehensive enough to establish whether the building work complies with the building code. This will usually require a building professional to provide accurate plans, specifications and verification of the building work. 

Certificates of acceptance can also be issued in two other circumstances - to approve work certified by a private certifier that exited the market before a code compliance certificate could be issued, or to approve work done urgently to ensure the safety of people or to prevent damage to property, such as strengthening work to prevent a chimney collapsing. 

A certificate of acceptance can provide you with peace of mind that you have done the best you can to determine that any unauthorised building work will not affect the value of your home.