Scheme not restrictive

Press, 29 May 1981, Page 24

Scheme not restrictive

"Do-it-yourselfers” will not be unduly restricted by the builders’ "registration scheme proposed by the Master Builders’ Federation, according to the federation’s registration committee convener, Mr Andrew Curran. Mr Curran has said this from Wellington in reply to Mr David Russell, the deputy director of the Consumers Institute, who said last week that the proposed registration scheme, was far too restrictive on people wishing to do up their own homes. Home owners would not be prevented from • improving their homes whenever, they wished. People building new homes, however, would not be permitted to build another within two years without being registered, Mr Curran said.

The proposed restriction

was to prevent people building and selling regularly without being registered as a builder. Exceptions could be made, however, for people who had to shift within the two years, but who wished to build another home in the area to which they moved. People who were building homes every six months or every two years were traders and should be dealt with as such. They should be registered to ensure that their work was up to standard, and if it was not, they could be dealt with by a registration board, Mr Curran said.

There was no intention to stop an individual building his own house, but if the house was sold, the next buyer was entitled to protection against faults. Under the proposed

scheme, people building their own homes or doing alterations or repairs costing more than $3OOO and needing a permit, would be supervised by local authority building inspectors or registered builders. If work was supervised bv a building inspector, an increased permit fee would be necessary to cover the increased visits to the site. Few visits were made at present, if at all, Mr Curran said. A registered builder supervising the building of a new house would make about six trips to the site, espe-

cially at the crucial stage’ of construction such as the laying of foundations. The builder would sign his name on the permit and would take responsibility for the workmanship.

Mr Russell said that he had found the text of the proposed scheme ambiguous.

He had not been sure whether the clause on house owners meant that they could not do alterations costing $3OOO more than once in two years, whether they could not build a new’ home more than once in two years, or whether they could not sell a house less than two years after building it, he said. '

He did not disagree with the proposed scheme in principle. It offered some protection to consumers, but it was possible that there was some other way of going about it, Mr Russell said.

A meeting would be held promptly with the Master Builders’ Federation to clarify the proposals.