From 1 March 2012, critical building work, known as Restricted Building Work, must be completed by a Licensed Building Practitioner (LBP). This change is one of several that were made to the Building Act 2004 in 2007 to encourage better building design and construction.
While most industry practitioners are aware of the upcoming changes to this legislation, it is important that members of the public who intend to undertake building work are also aware of the new requirements.
Building practitioners must be licensed in order to carry out, or supervise, work on homes and small-medium sized apartment buildings that is critical to the integrity of the building.
'Restricted Building Work' applies to the following, but is not limited to:
- Foundations
- Framing
- Roofing
- Cladding
- Active fire safety systems in small-medium sized apartment buildings
An exemption will be available to owner-builders (do-it-yourselfers) when the Building Amendment Bill No 3 has been passed into law.
From 1 March 2012, Building Consent applications will not be accepted unless they include a Memorandum (Certificate of Work) from an LBP certifying that the design work complies with the Building Code.
Licensed Building Practitioners include, but are not limited to:
- Designers
- Carpenters
- Roofers
- External Plasterers
- Bricklayers
- Block Layers
Registered architects, chartered professional engineers and plumbers are deemed to be Licensed Building Practitioners.
For more information on the LBP scheme, please see the Department of Building and Housing website www.dbh.govt.nz/lbp.
