Protection for homeowners

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Residential buildings can also include tiny homes that are on permanent foundations, and granny flats (also known as small standalone dwellings) that are 70 square meters or less.
 
Find out more about Tiny houses

Find out more about Granny flats (small standalone dwellings) 

Building work is any work done in relation to the construction or alteration of a building . This includes any work done on your home or other structure, such as a detached garage, retaining walls, and fences. It also includes work like painting, decorating, and landscaping if it is part of the construction or alteration of a building. This includes the manufacture of a ‘modular component’.

Steps to protect yourself during the building process

1. You must have a written contract for residential building work costing $30,000 or more, including GST. We recommend you have a contract even if the work will cost less, so everyone understands obligations, requirements and expectations.

2. Before you sign a contract for work that will cost $30,000 or more (including GST), or if you ask for it, your contractor must give you:

• a disclosure statement including information about his or her skills, qualifications, licensing status, and the insurance or guarantees they provide (this is called a disclosure statement)
• a checklist that outlines stages of the build and how to protect yourself, this is called the consumer protection standard checklist. 

3. Once the building work has been completed, and regardless of the size of the job, your building contractor must give you certain information or documents related to the building work. These include ongoing maintenance requirements, guarantees or warranties and any ongoing insurance policies. This can include documents, such as a Certificate of Work, Certificate of Compliance, and Record of Work where applicable. 

4. You have an automatic 12-month defect repair period when building contractors must fix any defects you’ve told them about in writing.

5. You can take action any time within 10 years of the building work being completed if warranties in the Building Act have not been met, even if they’re not in your contract (these are called implied warranties).

6. Building contractors can be fined if they don’t comply with the law.

Find out more by using the Consumer protection standard checklist [PDF 59KB] 

What the law says

The Building Act 2004

The Building Act 2004 protects consumers in relation to residential building and renovating work through implied warranties.

Find out more about consumer protections in the Building Act 2004 — legislation.govt.nz

The Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 applies to services provided to the building industry but not to buildings and building materials.

Design work is excluded from the definition of “building work” under Part 4A of the Building Act through section 362B. This means that implied warranties and residential building contract protections do not apply to design work. Design work may still be protected under the:

• Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 — legislation.govt.nz 
• Fair Trading Act 1986 — legislation.govt.nz 
• Professional disciplinary processes under the Building Act (especially for Licensed Building Practitioners doing Restricted Building Work).

Find out more about Restricted building work (RBW)

Find out more about consumer protection on the Consumer Protection website — consumerprotection.govt.nz

The Fair Trading Act ensures people are not misled about products and services. Find out more about the Fair Trading Act on the Commerce Commission website:

Your rights as a consumer — comcom.govt.nz

The building process overview

Find out about each step in the building process and who is responsible from this diagram

Diagram of the building process overview [PDF 346KB]

• Descriptive text for the building process overview diagram