Private company wins accreditation

Councils seem about to lose their monopoly to issue building consents

Property / news

Councils seem about to lose their monopoly to issue building consents

27th Oct 24, 10:52am by David Chaston

A Christchurch-based private advisory has won accreditation to process building consent applications, inspections of buildings during construction, issue Certification of building work, and to issue Notices to Fix.

This accreditation is expected to quickly move to registration to do all these directly with applicants. This could mean the company could be issuing building consents as early as January 2025.

This will be the first time building consents are issued by other than a Territorial Authority, or Kainga Ora (Consentium).

The company is Building Consent Approvals Limited. It is led by Ian McCauley. Here is the accreditation.

Some industry observers say this could be a massive game-changer for the construction sector, disrupting the monopoly that Councils have on the market.

The company has been doing subcontracting work in this area for Councils for some time, so it comes with an operational track record.

McCauley has been intimately involved in building regulatory policy for many years.

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13 Comments

by ChrisOfNoFame | 27th Oct 24, 11:35am 1729982151

I wonder who got to underwrite their liability insurance.

by Peter M | 27th Oct 24, 12:19pm 1729984776

The government?

by sadr001 | 27th Oct 24, 12:36pm 1729985766

Potentially Lloyd’s of London

by Kirikiriroa | 27th Oct 24, 2:35pm 1729992954

My bet is Lloyd's. Very little domestic appetite for this type of risk. See also: pre-purchase building inspectors

by transactional | 27th Oct 24, 8:28pm 1730014118

they havent even set up their website. I am sure some councils are probably happy to reduce their exposure for the back end of the building industry, i.e., dealing with shoddy workmanship, corner cutting, and the resultant building envelope failures.

by J.C. | 27th Oct 24, 12:45pm 1729986317

According to Linkedin, Ian McCauley has worked closely with MBIE "to identify and represent risks and matters related to the NZ Building Code, including the robust discussion of any Agenda items that are brought to the table by other members."

Oodles of bureaucrat schmoozing and actual inspection experience. Setting up a private business and issuing invoices to local govt and / or developers / builders is the icing on the cake.

by MikeM | 27th Oct 24, 12:57pm 1729987069

We've been down this road before. Building inspections were privatised some 20+ years ago only to be scrapped because of quality problems.

Hopefully we get some success with privatising the consenting process.

by kiwikidsnz | 27th Oct 24, 3:29pm 1729996157

"Building inspections were privatised some 20+ years ago only to be scrapped because of quality problems..."

are you sure about that? Because around 30 years ago (1 July 1992) the Code Compliance regime was implemented & administered only by approved "Building Consent Authorities" - eg Councils. AFAIK only Housing Corp / Kianga Ora were able to inspect & issue CCCs outside that (using 3ps as mentioned in the above article)

by JimboJones | 27th Oct 24, 8:15pm 1730013303

I believe Manukau City Council outsourced inspections to private companies. The council were still issuing the consent, but not actually doing the inspections. But I am not 100% sure of that.

by Let me be Frank | 27th Oct 24, 8:59pm 1730015994

"Private consent authorities have been permitted since the Building Act of 1991. Compass Building Consultants director Maurice Hinton said 18 companies entered the field in the 1990s. But all stopped issuing building consents after the act was rewritten in 2004 - in the wake of the leaky building crisis - to require all consent authorities to carry full civil liability insurance."

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/companies/construction/government-t…

by kiwikidsnz | 27th Oct 24, 9:17pm 1730017038

Thanks for your clarification. It will be interesting to know whether the certifier liability caps mentioned your 2015 link are also part of the new proposal.

by tezw21 | 29th Oct 24, 10:26am 1730150811

Tauranga city had a couple of private certifiers, went back to the council when they couldn't get insurance and were about to be sued for leaky homes. Some of the building inspectors got taken to court individually, only people to win were the lawyers as they had to go bankrupt. The one good thing about them being private was the awesome service we got, hard to go back to council after that

by spinach1 | 28th Oct 24, 6:06am 1730048781

Yep, happened in Papakura. All fell over when they found they could be sued and the liability insurance was a no go. It reverted to councils as they could not be sued...