The Scheme
Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk has confirmed the introduction of a self-certification scheme that will allow Licensed Building Practitioners to sign off certain categories of their own work without council inspection. The scheme is expected to enable approximately 3,000 homes per year to bypass inspection delays — addressing a process that, in Penk’s framing, requires “approximately 12 inspections” for a simple home and involves delays that can stretch to a week between request and completion, adding roughly $400 per day to project costs.
Alongside self-certification, Building Consent Authorities will face a new inspection time target requiring completion of 80 percent of inspections within three working days. Both measures are expected to take effect by the end of 2025.
The Case For Self-Certification
ACT Building and Construction spokesperson Cameron Luxton, himself a Licensed Building Practitioner, has endorsed the scheme in terms that align with its market logic: “Expert builders should be allowed to shoulder the liability for their work, protected by insurance.” The insurance requirement is central to the scheme’s design — making liability explicit and financial consequences real creates incentives for quality workmanship that the current system, where liability is diffused across builder, inspector, and council, does not fully provide.
For builders with strong track records and no history of defect claims, the scheme provides recognition and reduced process overhead. For clients who can verify a builder’s LBP record and select based on reputation, it provides a market mechanism for quality assurance that does not depend on the inspection system alone.
The Concerns
Labour’s opposition centres on the leaky homes parallel. Spokesperson Tangi Utikere: “We have lived through the cost of building failures before. We must not repeat the mistakes of the leaky homes era.” The Institute of Building Surveyors president David Clifton argues that LBPs need additional continuous professional development before self-certification can be trusted — that the current qualification base is not sufficient preparation for the independent responsibility the scheme requires.
Former building commentator Mark Graham raised the specific concern of franchise-based volume builders: “The Master Builders guarantee that many clients rely on for peace of mind is, as with any insurance company, hard to claim on.” For clients of large-volume builders, the practical protection against defects depends critically on the financial standing and willingness of the builder to honour warranty obligations — an area where the leaky homes era provided the most expensive possible demonstration that market-based accountability can fail.
