Builder fined for undertaking work without a consent…

The Licensed Building Practitioners Board has found a builder guilty of negligence and incompetence for carrying out building work without having obtained the necessary building consent.  The work involved building a bathroom into an existing garage and putting insulation into the walls of a garage.

The Board held that both of those matters required consent from the Local Authority.  Builders must not carry out building work before the consent is obtained and the Board regarded the builder’s actions in undertaking the work before the consent was obtained as serious and amounting to negligence.

The Board did consider suspending the builder’s licence, but in the end decided that, because the builder accepted responsibility and said that he had learned from his errors, a fine of $2,500 would be substituted.  The builder was also ordered to pay the costs of the investigation.



Alan Knowsley
Partner
Wellington