Complaint Decisions – August 2024

Summary of 6 cases:

In 6 recent cases the respondents failed to provide a record of work on completion of restricted building work. All respondents were fined $1000 and ordered to pay costs of $500.

These cases are a good reminder that the record of building work form must be completed by all LBPs who carry out or supervise restricted building work (RBW). It must be provided to the homeowner and the territorial authority (usually the local council) when the RBW is completed.

Case 2:

The Respondent supervised building work (a suspended concrete floor slab) in a negligent manner and in a manner that was contrary to a building consent. He also failed to provide a record of work on completion of restricted building work. He is fined $2,500 and ordered to pay costs of $875. In the Draft Decision, the Respondent was given the opportunity to provide a record of work before the Board made a Final Decision. The Board indicated that if he did, its provision would be considered as a mitigating factor. A record of work has now been provided. The fine is reduced to $2,000.

Case 3:

A recent Building Practitioners Board hearing into a complaint about the level of supervision provided by an LBP designer resulted in a censure and costs of $1500 against him. A censure is a public expression of disapproval, and it records the Board’s condemnation of the respondent’s conduct.

The respondent had engaged another design business to develop a design and apply for building consent.

The Respondent supervised the design work for the building consent application. After the building consent application had been lodged, the Council issued two Requests for Information (RFI). The Respondent had not ensured that he would be kept informed of the consent process after lodgement. He did not take any steps to supervise responses to the RFIs even though he was informed by the Council that RFIs had been issued. The Board decided that the failure to supervise amounted to negligent conduct.

The Board accepted that the person who was mostly responsible for what had occurred was the person who was being supervised. As such, and notwithstanding that the Respondent’s lack of supervision systems and processes allowed the essentially unsupervised person to act as he did, the Board decided it would reduce the penalty from a fine to a censure.