Certificate of Work
The person applying for building consent is responsible for submitting the Certificate of Work with their application. As the designer, you must provide a Certificate of Work to the building owner. This Certificate of Work needs to be given to the local council when applying for building consent.
You'll need to fill out the:
Please make sure you include the following information:
- What the Design RBW is, and whether you carried out or supervised this work
- Acknowledgement that the Design RBW complies with the Building Code, or, if waivers or modifications of the Building Code are needed, what they are
- Your LBP number – or your registration number if you are a Registered Architect or Chartered Professional Engineer.
Your information needs to be complete and accurate and it’s important all parts of the Design RBW are covered. You must show on your Certificate of Work which parts of the design work are RBW.
You don’t need to replicate plans and specifications on the building consent application form, but you must clearly reference your design documents.
If more than one designer has done Design RBW, all the designers involved need to make sure their information aligns with that of others involved in the application.
We are aware that there has been an issue over the wording of the new Certificate of Work form. This letter seeks to clarify this for licensed designers, registered architects, and chartered professional engineers who are providing such certificates. Download the Design Certificate of Work clarification letter [PDF 884 KB, 2 pages]
Consenting
All RBW needs a consent from your local council. The building consent application must include a Certificate of Work from you as a Design LBP (or from a Registered Architect or Chartered Professional Engineer). Please give this to the owner to include in their building consent application.
The RBW parts of the application that the council will check are:
- Whether the design work is RBW
- If it is RBW, whether the plans and specifications were prepared by, or supervised by
one or more Design LBPs
- Whether RBW Certificates of Work have been provided by all Design LBPs involved
- Whether the RBW Certificates of Work identify the RBW with reference to the included plans and specifications
- Whether the application has all the names of the LBPs who will be involved in carrying out or supervising RBW (if known at this time)
- Whether the RBW Certificate of Work states that RBW complies with the Building Code
- Whether waivers or modifications are required, and if so what those are
- Whether the council is satisfied that the provisions of the Building Code would be met if the building work were properly completed in line with the plans and specifications provided with the application.
If you need to apply for a waiver or modification to the Building Code, you can do so in the building consent application. If the waiver or modification relates to RBW, then the details of the waiver or modification you’re applying for must also be on the Certificate of Work.
Supervision of Design RBW
If you are supervising RBW, you provide direction and oversight of the design work to make sure it is done properly and complies with the Building Code. To do this, you must be a Licensed Building Practitioner in the design class (or a Registered Architect or Chartered Professional Engineer). You will also need to sign a form stating you supervised RBW design and the design complies with the Building Code.
You can only supervise RBW if you are licensed to do so. As a designer, architect or engineer you may observe construction on-site, and check that the work is being done in accordance with the building contract, but if you are not licensed to do that type of physical construction or alteration RBW, then you are not able to supervise and sign for that work.
MultiProof Designs (National multiple use approvals)
MultiProof approvals are issued by the Department and state that a specific set of building plans and specifications complies with the Building Code. MultiProof approval can be obtained for standardised building designs intended to be replicated 10 or more times in a two year period.
Councils must accept a MultiProof as evidence of Building Code compliance – but a building consent is still needed even with a MultiProof.
From 1 March 2012:
- An application for a MultiProof must include a Certificate of Work which states that any RBW in the MultiProof design complies with the Building Code
- An application for a building consent using a MultiProof design will still need to have a separate Certificate of Work included for any relevant site-specific parts of the design, and any customisations made to the MultiProof design, if restricted building work is involved.