Licensed Building Practitioners
About the Licensed Building Practitioner Scheme
The Scheme is one the changes in the Building Act 2004 to encourage better building design and construction.
The public can have confidence that licensed building practitioners working on their homes and buildings are competent, and that homes and buildings are designed and built right the first time.
Licensing promotes, recognises and supports professional skills and behaviour in the building industry. Over time, the emphasis on education and training, along with better career pathways, will increase. From 2015 it is proposed that licensing will be qualifications-based.
In the meantime, however, the Scheme is competency based. This means that tradespeople who do not hold formal qualifications have nothing to fear from licensing. Competent builders and tradespeople with a good track record can have their skills and knowledge formally recognised, whether they are trade-qualified or not. A number of people without formal trade qualifications have already been assessed as competent and been granted licensing.
For those with a good track record and who are trade-qualified it is proposed to make getting assessed and licensed more straightforward, faster and cheaper. Read about streamlining the Licensed Building Practitioner scheme.
All licensed building practitioners are listed on a public online register, along with details of their licensing classes.
Licensed building practitioners are accountable for their work via a complaints procedure. Property owners will be able to make complaints to the Building Practitioners Board about licensed practitioners if their work is substandard.
It is anticipated that around 20,000 people will be licensed once the Scheme is fully implemented. The Department of Building and Housing has worked closely with the building industry to develop it.
Restricted work aspects of the Scheme, which involve some work being restricted to licensed building practitioners only, will apply after 1 March 2012.
Licensing classes
Licensing began on 1 November 2007 with the introduction of the Design 1, 2 and 3, Site 1, 2 and 3 and Carpentry classes.
The External Plastering, Roofing, Bricklaying and Blocklaying classes opened on 1 November 2008. Licensing classes for Concrete Structure, Steel Structure, and Foundations are expected to be open in early 2010 after a consultation process has been completed.