A code compliance certificate is issued by the Council under Section 95 of the Building Act 2004 when all the requirements of Section 94 of the Building Act 2004 have been met. This includes being satisfied on reasonable grounds that the building work complies with the building consent.
A lack of a code compliance certificate may prevent a bank from releasing a final builder payment or increase the cost of insurance coverage. You may also have trouble selling your house.
An owner must apply for a code compliance certificate after all building work to be carried out under building consent is completed. Before applying for a code compliance certificate, ensure that the building consent requirements have been met, including the accompanying schedule of inspections.
If the building consent requirements have not been met, it is likely your application for a code compliance certificate will not be accepted.
The application must be made as soon as practicable after the building work is completed by either:
We encourage you, or your agent, to provide the required documentation listed on the building consent approval in its entirety when applying for CCC. Submitting all of the documentation at once will speed up the process, and ultimately the issuance of the code compliance certificate. Occasionally, there will be additional documentation requested during the building inspection process. These requests will be documented on the building inspection site reports.
When your application is received the statutory time frame (or statutory clock) of 20 working days for processing your application starts on the next working day.
We aim to make a decision on your code compliance certificate within 20 working days.
However, during the processing of your application, the statutory clock stops if we need to send you a request for information (RFI). Typically, this will be for outstanding or inaccurate documentation and missed inspections.
Once all the information is provided the statutory clock will be started again and processing of the application will resume. We then make a decision on your code compliance certificate whether to issue or refuse your code compliance certificate.
If as a result of building work a building contains certain safety and essential systems, known as specified systems, a compliance schedule will be issued by the building consent authority.
The compliance schedule will describe the specified systems, state their performance standards and describe the inspection, maintenance, and reporting procedures for the specified systems.
A compliance schedule is there to ensure the continued effective operation of the building’s specified systems.
A specified system means a system or feature contained in or attached to, a building that contributes to the proper functioning of the building and is listed as a specified system within the building regulations. For example: sprinkler systems, fire alarms and lifts.
If as a result of building work specified systems are added to a building, a compliance schedule (or an amended compliance schedule) will be issued with the code compliance certificate.
Where a compliance schedule has been issued for the first time (typically a new building), a compliance schedule statement is also issued by the Council.
This statement must be displayed publicly in the building and is valid for 12 months.
After receiving a compliance schedule statement owners must engage an independent qualified person (IQP) as soon as possible (typically within one month) to ensure that all inspection, maintenance and reporting procedures are complied with for the next 12 months.
At each anniversary of the issue of the compliance schedule, you must supply the Council with a building warrant of fitness. The building warrant of fitness states that the inspection, maintenance, and reporting procedures of the compliance schedule have been fully complied with during the previous 12 months.
A copy of the building warrant of fitness must be publicly displayed in the building.
You will need to apply for an amendment to the existing compliance schedule if you want to:
As the owner, you can apply for an amendment to the compliance schedule at any time by completing this application form and returning it to [email protected]
For further information on Compliance Schedules please follow this link to our website
Fees and levies payable vary for applications depending on the type of project. Please refer to the fees and charges , which also outlines further detail on how to pay.
Where the time to process the code compliance certificate application exceeds the 2 hours that have been paid for when the building consent was issued, the additional time will be charged at the relevant rate.
Any outstanding fees must be paid before the code compliance certificate (Form 7) is issued. This includes payment of any additional inspections, code compliance processing time and minor variations. If a development contribution is required to be paid, it will be noted within the building consent approval (on the form 3) and must be paid before the Code Compliance Certificate can be issued.
Payment Options
The following payment methods are available to make Payment:
The receipt of a code compliance certificate means the building is deemed to have been completed in accordance with the plans and specifications provided and complies with the Building Code.
If an application for a code compliance certificate has not been made within two years of the date that the building consent was granted, or any further period agreed between the owner and the Council, the Council must make a decision under section 93(2)(b) whether to issue or not the code compliance certificate.
If Council refuses to issue a code compliance certificate, you may apply again once any identified non-compliances have been remedied
The Council may refuse to issue a code compliance certificate if:
Premises affected by consented building work cannot be used by members of the public until the code compliance certificate is issued unless a certificate for public use has been issued.
Any breach could result in enforcement action by the Council.
If you are unhappy about any aspect of our building control service, you can lodge a complaint and have your complaint managed. You can also appeal any decision we have made or complain about any building control function we undertake.
To submit a complaint please provide details in writing to:
Manager Building Assurance
Porirua City Council
16 Cobham Court
PO Box 50218
Porirua.
You will need to give us the following information:
An initial response will be provided within two working days, acknowledging the receipt of your complaint, and advising of a timeframe for investigation and response.
You will be asked whether you wish to be heard in relation to the complaint or to provide further information.
If you do not agree with the outcome, you may request a review of the decision. All appeals must be made in writing, stating the reasons why you disagree with the decision.
All appeals should be addressed to:
General Manager Policy, Planning and Regulatory Services
Porirua City Council
16 Cobham Court
PO Box 50218
Porirua.
OR
Chief Executive Officer
Porirua City Council
16 Cobham Court
PO Box 50218
Porirua
We will respond to your appeal within 10 working days.
Seeking a Determination
If you are still unhappy or choose to use an alternative route to settle a matter of doubt or dispute, you may apply to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) for a Determination. See Determinations for further information on this service and to download an application form.
Building consents that are older than 5 years are considered historic and the evidence required to obtain a code compliance certificate (CCC) for this work may be different to a more recent building project.
Historic building consents does not cover building work that was constructed as part of a building permit which were issued prior to the implementation of the Building Act 1991. Building permits were issued by Council under the Bylaw legislative framework where a code compliance certificate was not issued. There is no mechanism to legitimise unpermitted work carried out prior to 1991.
A request to assess a code compliance certificate application for a historic building consent can be initiated by the owner by applying using the My Porirua online portal:
If an application was submitted at the time the building work was finished, then please request an assessment and inspection for a historic building consent using the email below:
The CCC application or request will be allocated to an officer and due to the complexity of historic building consents, a minimum of 4 hours will be required for the initial review and assessment of records. All officer time is chargeable regardless of the outcome of the application.
For more information on our fees see click here
An assessment of the approved building consent and relevant documentation will be completed and may include the following factors:
The owner will be contacted to book an inspection. A copy of the original building consent documentation must be available on site for the time of the inspection.
The inspector will assess if they can be satisfied on reasonable grounds that the building work complies with the building code and/or the building consent. This may be dependent on the scope and complexity of the building work and what can be seen by the inspector.
In some cases, the inspector may identify that the application for CCC needs to be supported by a report from a suitably qualified person such as a Registered Building Surveyor, Registered Architect and/or Chartered Professional Engineer with experience in a specialised practise area.
Before engaging this person, please seek approval from Council first to ensure they have the demonstrative competence to support your application.
