Some amendments have recently been made to the legislation affecting the design, construction and rectification of class 2 buildings (or buildings containing a class 2 part) in New South Wales, which originally came into effect on 1 September 2020, for rectification, and 1 July 2021.
The expiry of the transitional period to apply for registration as a design practitioner, principal design practitioner or building practitioner under the Design and Building Practitioners legislation has been extended to 28 February 2022. It was previously to expire on 31 December 2021. Registration is essential to being able to carry out the design covered by the regime and to provide the design and construction declarations required by the regime. Registration will become more complex once the transitional provisions expire.
The transitional relief provided to building work carried out under staged construction certificates has been extended to building work commenced under one of the construction certificates before 1 July 2023, rather than only applying to such work commenced before 1 July 2022. This will give those affected by this aspect of the regime greater time to consider the impact of the expiry of the transitional relief.
The requirement to lodge a building compliance declaration and other documents on the NSW Planning Portal before an occupation certificate is applied for has been extended to also apply to building work that does not require an occupation certificate. In that case, the declaration and other documents must be lodged within 7 days of completing the work.
The Residential Apartment Buildings (Compliance and Enforcement Powers) legislation has been amended to strengthen the provisions added in September 2021 that govern the acceptance by the Secretary of the Department of Customer Service (in effect the NSW Building Commissioner) of a rectification bond as part of an undertaking given to the Secretary. Only one such undertaking has currently been given, which enabled the lifting of a prohibition order on the issuing of an occupation certificate and registration of a strata plan. The amendment enables the Secretary to make an order prohibiting the issuing of an occupation certificate or registration of a strata plan if a rectification bond required by an undertaking has not been provided to the Secretary.
The team at Hamilton Locke are presenting workshops on the operation of the legislation next month (March 2022) – please get in touch if this is of interest.
For more information, please contact Grant Parker (Partner), Veno Panicker (Partner) or John Hibbard.
