The Government has introduced the Building Amendment Bill, signalling the most significant overhaul of New Zealand’s building system in more than 20 years. The Bill aims to address inefficiencies that increase costs, delay delivery and constrain performance by providing greater clarity around roles, responsibilities and risk allocation across the building sector.
Click here to read the Bill.
What’s been announced?
The Bill introduces a broad package of reforms designed to make the building system easier, faster and more affordable while maintaining consumer protections.
Some of the proposals in the Bill include:
- A move to proportionate liability for defective building work, replacing the current joint and several liability framework so parties are responsible only for their share of the loss.
- Voluntary consolidation of Building Consent Authorities (BCAs) to improve consistency, efficiency and resource sharing across the consenting system.
- Mandatory professional indemnity insurance for design professionals, including architects and engineers.
- Mandatory home warranties for most new homes and major renovations over $100,000, with minimum protections for homeowners.
- A new 10-working-day fast-track consent pathway for residential buildings that incorporate solar generation or other sustainable features.
- Changes to support off-site construction and granny flats, enabling greater use of modern methods of construction.
- Modernisation of building sector funding, including combining the Building Levy and Building Research Levy into a single framework.
The reforms sit within a wider programme of building system change that includes occupational licensing reform, self-certification schemes and changes to the earthquake-prone building regime.
What does Property Council think?
For Property Council members, this is a significant milestone. Many of the proposals reflect reforms we have long advocated for, particularly those designed to improve accountability, reduce unnecessary costs and support more efficient delivery of homes and buildings.
In particular, the move to proportionate liability represents a long-awaited rebalancing of risk within the construction sector. The current liability framework has often left solvent parties, particularly councils, carrying a disproportionate share of costs when defects arise.
We are currently reviewing the Bill in more detail and will meet with our Building Systems Taskforce soon to develop our positions.
What's next?
The Bill has now passed its first reading and will proceed through the select committee process, where stakeholders will have the opportunity to provide feedback on the proposals. We are not sure on these dates yet.
If you would like to join our Taskforce to help shape our positions or to be kept in the loop with this reform, please reach out to Sandamali below.
Finally, MBIE recently hosted a webinar on the proposed reforms. If you’d like to hear directly from the officials leading this work, you can watch the recording here.
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