Changes coming for Private Certification?
The Building Commission of Victoria is currently increasing its auditing activities for the Building Permit Levy, in part, as a response to open and lapsed building permits. A series of high profile collapses of private building surveyors has the potential to embarrass the Victorian State Government and bring in to disrepute private certification. These private building surveyor defaults have also created lots of work for the Building Commission!
The Levy is the key source of data for the Building Commission about the status of permit completion. Building Surveyors are required to report completion of these permits in the monthly Levy return to the Commission. The Commission is currently conducting a trial with some larger permit issuers to evaluate the integrity of the current data.
In some respects Building Surveyors may now be published for the success of Private Building Surveying. If you think of this in terms of the old adage you get the politicians you vote for – The State of Victoria is getting exactly what it deserves! Private Building Surveying was introduced in July 1994. It replaced a system where Building Surveying Consultants could provide Design Certification to Local Councils who then issued the permit, did the inspections and signed off approval of occupation of the building. We don’t have access to the statistics, but we suspect that Local Council probably had as many open and lapsed permits before 1 July 1994. What has changed is who does the permits and how many. Local government is now increasingly opting out of issuing building permits e.g. Shire of Yarra Ranges. This means a system designed for design certification of well documented and larger commercial projects with Architects and Engineering Professionals is now being required to certify smaller domestic alterations as well.
In combination with the recent levels of economic activity and the resultant volume of building work it is no wonder the system is a victim of its own successes. With ageing demographic of the registered building surveyors in the system the pressure to issue increasing volumes of permits is only likely to increase. (David Swinson, the author, is a registered private building surveyor BS15988 in Lilydale Victoria.)
Tags: Building Commission, Building Permits, Building Regulations