Licensed Building Practitioners
About the Licensed Building Practitioner Scheme
The Scheme is one of the changes in the Building Act 2004 to encourage better building design and construction.
The public can have confidence that licensed building practitioners working on their homes and buildings are competent, and that homes and buildings are designed and built right the first time.
Licensing promotes, recognises and supports professional skills and behaviour in the building industry. Over time, the emphasis on education and training, along with better career pathways, will increase. From 2015 it is proposed that licensing will be qualifications-based.
In the meantime, the Scheme is competency based. This means that tradespeople who do not hold formal qualifications have nothing to fear from licensing. Competent builders and tradespeople with a good track record can have their skills and knowledge formally recognised, whether they are trade-qualified or not. A number of people without formal trade qualifications have already been assessed as competent and have their licences
Qualified LBP applicants will now find it is easier, faster and cheaper to get licensed. Read about streamlining the Licensed Building Practitioner scheme.
All licensed building practitioners are listed on a public online register, along with details of their licence classes.
Licensed building practitioners are accountable for their work via a complaints procedure. Property owners can complain to the Building Practitioners Board about licensed practitioners if their work is substandard.
It is anticipated that around 20,000 people will be licensed once the Scheme is fully implemented. The Department of Building and Housing has worked closely with the building industry to develop the Scheme.
Restricted work aspects of the Scheme, which involve some work being restricted to licensed building practitioners only, will apply after 1 March 2012.
Licence classes
Licensing began on 1 November 2007 with the introduction of the Design 1, 2 and 3, Site 1, 2 and 3 and Carpentry classes.
The External Plastering, Roofing, Bricklaying and Blocklaying classes opened on 1 November 2008. A licence for Foundations is expected to be open in 2010.