Skip to content.
Return to Department of Building and Housing home page.

*ARCHIVE* - BIA Update 39 - Deregistration of Approved Building Certifiers 7 Sep 2004

The Building Industry Authority (BIA) today announced the deregistration of Approved Building Certifiers (ABC), following a formal finding that ABC had been negligent and incompetent in its operation as a building certifier.

The effect is that ABC can not accept new work, undertake inspections, or issue building certificates or code compliance certificates. This decision is now effective and relates to each of ABC's offices in Mt Wellington, Henderson, Waitakere City, North Shore and Whangarei.

ABC will have its scope removed in full on 18 October 2004. This period of 'limited scope' allows the BIA to exercise certain powers under the Building Act - such as the ability to monitor ABC's transfer of client files to territorial authorities.

The BIA stresses that this matter relates only to ABC and not to any other building certifier.

Nature of findings

The BIA's decision stems from an Investigation and Inquiry process under Sections 54 and 55 of the Building Act 1991 into complaints received against ABC from Waitakere and North Shore City Councils. The Authority found ABC to have been negligent and incompetent in the following respects: 

  • Issuing code compliance certificates and interim code compliance certificates for buildings, without having the authority to conduct inspections relating to these
  • Inadequate record keeping and irregularities relating to the signature of inspection-related documents
  • Faulty inspections on which code compliance certificates were issued
  • Inspecting building work that had not received a consent
  • A failure to address management issues within the company.

Implications for ABC clients and territorial authorities

The BIA is aware that ABC's current clients will be concerned about delays to their projects and cost implications when advised of the closure. Early indications are that ABC has around 5000 current files - these will vary considerably in terms of where they are in the building process with some relatively new jobs and some jobs that will have been completed for some time, but where the code compliance certificate process has not been completed.

 The BIA has had initial discussions with ABC about implementing an orderly closure of its business in order to manage the impact on its clients. ABC has provided some assurances that it intends to support such an orderly closure.

Under Section 57 of the Building Act 1991, where a building certifier has closed down, territorial authorities are required to resume the code compliance certification process. The BIA understands that accepting files in these circumstances will put some pressure on territorial authorities.

The BIA will work with ABC and territorial authorities to manage an effective transfer for all concerned, especially homeowners.

The BIA has provided a commitment to territorial authorities likely to be affected by this closure that it will endeavor to ensure the transfer is facilitated in a manner that causes as little difficulty for them as possible.

Once a territorial authority has received files from ABC, it must then assess the file, and possibly inspect the building work, to determine what needs to be done to progress it. Once its assessment is complete, the territorial authority may need to amend the building consent to reflect the change from building certifier to territorial authority. In addition, to enable the territorial authority to assess the building work for a code compliance certificate, the territorial authority should conduct any inspections it considers necessary.

If the territorial authority is not satisfied that any part of the building work does not comply with the Building Code, it will need to work with the building owner to resolve any issues.

Informing consumers

The BIA is monitoring the transfer of files to territorial authorities. It expects the transfer to be completed over the next two weeks but this depends in large part on ABC assisting in a managed and orderly transfer.

Unfortunately we are unable to discuss ABC's clients' individual situations. In the interim we will provide information to ABC's clients via the news media, public notice advertisements, the BIA website, and have set up a free-phone number for consumer inquiries - 0800 40 41 42.