NSW Fair Trading has completed 87 building audits, targeting some of the State’s riskiest projects to ensure residential apartment buildings are being constructed in line with Building Code of Australia and free from defects.
Minister for better regulation Kevin Anderson said through the NSW Government’s recent investment in 30 additional building inspectors, Fair Trading is on track to complete 200 occupation certificate (OC) audits by the end of 2022.
“The NSW Government is on a mission to lift quality and accountability in the construction sector. To date we have introduced sweeping reforms and built a team of expert inspectors to enforce the legislation on the ground by identifying and resolving building defects before owners move in,” Mr Anderson said.
“We have set ourselves an ambitious target of 200 audits that we are well on our way to exceeding, thanks to the hard work of the Building Commissioner and Fair Trading’s inspection teams.”
Mr Anderson said the projects selected for OC audits across NSW are determined by using risk profiling, which allows the regulator to target its efforts on high risk projects.
“Our data shows around 20 per cent of developers are causing the majority of problems in the market which is why our compliance efforts are focusing on those players,” Mr Anderson said.
“By analysing the history and performance of certifiers, builders and developers, and combining regulatory data from across different government agencies including Fire and Rescue NSW and SafeWork NSW, we’ve been able to develop a powerful risk matrix to target our audits on the high risk projects.
“What we’ve seen on the ground supports our predictions with inspectors identifying defects on the majority of the projects audited.”
For more information visit https://www.nsw.gov.au/building-commissioner/construct-nsw/ratings-system
