Tuesday 15 September is very nearly upon us, so don’t delay, complete your renewal form today!
Applications for the 2026 NZACS Scholarship are open! The purpose of the scholarship is to encourage and support practising consultants in NZACS member firms to develop commercial acumen and risk management skills. The annual scholarship is worth $25,000 and applicants can apply for all or part of the funding.
The NZACS Scholarship is available to employees and principals of NZACS member firms. Please forward this information to anyone at your practice who may be interested. For more details and to make an application go to our website.
As we mentioned last issue, the Building Amendment Bill is published and there is much more in there than an end to “joint and several” liability for construction. This issue we draw attention to proposed clauses 393C and 393Y.
Architects can include limitations of contractual liability in their agreements for services, and wherever fair and reasonable NZACS encourages you to do so. The exception is any work that would be covered by the Consumer Guarantees Act – typically residential work for owner-occupiers – where liability can’t be limited by contract.
The proposed clause 393C would change this radically. Instead of architects being unable to limit contractual liability to consumer clients, we would be unable to exclude or limit liability for any design work “in relation to a house or a small-to-medium apartment building”. On the face of it, that would include some large medium-density residential projects for commercial developers, or an architect undertaking design work for a builder, neither of whom would be regarded as consumers. It would not be the client, but the type of building, that will be important in determining whether we can limit our liability.
You may have heard discussion about compulsory Home Warranties being introduced. This is too complex a topic for a short article but proposed clause 393Y gives a glimpse of one aspect of how Home Warranties may work. Clause 393Y would require a BCA to stop work under a residential Building Consent in whole or part, until they have evidence provided that a Home Warranty has been put in place. Projects will need clarity as to exactly who will arrange this Home Warranty, and when, to prevent delay to project start on site.
For more detail have a look at the published Bill itself.
It’s not law yet! You can make a submission to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee at Parliament up until Sunday, 15 November 2026. You are a stakeholder and entitled to your say.
Few of us like to receive invoices for more than we were expecting. This applies to our clients too and a couple of recent notifications to our Claims Committee involve debates about fees.
Often architects can’t fix our fees in advance – or would be unwise to do so. An engagement at agreed hourly rates can be perfectly fair, especially if scope is not really known. What we would suggest however, is that wherever possible, and even when the client is telling you to “just get on with it”, it will be in the architect’s interest for expectations to be managed through clear communication about what quantum of fees to expect. It may be obvious to us that re-work, change to the scope instructed, unexpected complexity or extra meetings all mean more time spent, and so more fees, but it might not be so obvious to our clients.
We’d also recommend invoicing promptly. The late arrival of an invoice more likely to cause friction, than when the work is freshly done. Keeping those timesheets up to date and monitoring where the team’s time is going will also help you to give clients early warning if fees are threatening to exceed expectations.
Finally, if the relationship has already broken down, or threatens to do so, think very carefully about that final invoice before sending it.
For certain types of work, instead of only being able to approach the territorial BCA run by the relevant local authority, your client can now opt to use Building Consent Approvals Limited (BCAL), or other private BCAs if they join the market in future. This is different from the outsourcing of Building Consent processing to subcontractors, which many Councils already use to carry out their role as BCA, because BCAL is quite separate from any Council.
Independent private Building Consent Authorities are an idea with a mixed history in NZ and overseas: there are pros and cons to using a private BCA. The best option will not be the same for every project or client. You as architect will need to consider what to advise your client about which BCA to use when applying for Building Consent, now that there is a choice to make.
A query from a member checking that their insurance covered architectural services in connection with recladding a house, and the terms on which they might undertake that work, set the Claims Committee thinking. While by no means a comprehensive guide, here are some of the resulting thoughts.
First the good news. So long as you are offering conventional architectural services within your competency, which for a residential architect is likely to include design, observation and contract administration for recladding of a house, your PI insurance through NZACS will cover you. Even better news: this year AON has been able to negotiate for NZACS members an increase in the sublimit for weathertightness claims.
When we say recladding, there is a world of difference between, say, replacing the monolithic cladding on a 1990s standalone house, and replacing the envelope on a five-storey office building. If the project is well outside your usual practice, think carefully about how you will go about developing the capability and capacity required. And then develop it!
What is the worst that can happen with a reclad? Well, quite literally Grenfell Tower. And in that case the inquiry findings adjudged that the architect’s main fault was not that they undertook work outside their previous experience, but that having identified that they lacked experience and skills in the area, did too little to address that lack.
Lesser catastrophes include severe financial stress for your client if scope runs away with the project, and ongoing problems for you if the result does not perform as expected. These are quite bad enough and either could see you notifying your insurer of a claim.
So have a think. How far is this from your usual practice? A hop and a skip from residential “adds and alts”, or a giant leap in type and scale? And technical matters aside, have you dealt with (for example) a body corporate before, if this is an apartment or multi-unit project?
For many reasons – not all about leaky buildings! – re-cladding or renewal of cladding is a common activity in New Zealand. As a result, there is a body of experience out there and firms that do this work routinely. Before getting out the No. 8 wire and following the great NZ tradition of inventing a new and completely original approach, consider looking at what has been done and talking to experienced practitioners in the field – not just architects but building surveyors, quantity surveyors and others.
At the risk of stating the obvious, a re-clad will demand construction observation, and probably greater construction observation, over a more extended period, than would apply for a similar value of new work. Don’t even think about re-cladding without construction observation.
The BCA is likely to require a QA plan of which you may be part, and most BCAs take a special interest in re-cladding work, especially if the system being replaced has failed or is a type believed to be high risk.
This is not a passive kind of observation for conformance to the contract documents either: you will probably be called upon to solve unexpected problems and resolve details that you would never encounter on greenfield new build, and potentially under pressure of time. You can expect attendance on site to be frequent and, occasionally, at short notice.
With near-certainty of variations to the contract, a form of contract with an independent contract administrator – whether architect or other professional – is strongly advised.
Consider carefully who is going to administer the contract. There is a good argument for the architect administering the contract for a re-clad, in order that the architect’s advice bears weight, and if additional work or re-work is required to obtain a robust result, then that work can be instructed promptly by the architect with a contractor motivated to act.
That's not to say that consultant project managers cannot run a re-clad contract. They certainly can, but you should be confident that you can trust them to respect and follow your advice as architect whenever necessary.
Not every architect who undertakes re-cladding relies upon a building surveyor, some suitably skilled and experienced architects have as much or more knowledge in the field. However, working with a building surveyor has potential advantages, for example:
Consider whether “more is more” when it comes to scope, rather than an over-delicate attempt to conserve as much of the building fabric as possible. For example, older aluminium windows and doors are often not worth trying to save, especially when there is a high risk that they may fail in the attempt to re-use them. Trying to conserve too much, you will face costs in developing special details that may exceed the value to the project, and just add risk. A more comprehensive scope of work, while superficially more costly, could not only improve cost control but simplify design and improve outcomes. Targeted remediation is often poorer value than dealing outright with the problem. Once the work is opened up, there is a risk that a targeted remediation could turn, incrementally and expensively, into comprehensive work anyway.
Estimation of cost of reclad and remediation is more challenging than a “clean” new build and you should consider engaging (or advising your client to engage) an independent Quantity Surveyor to obtain sound cost advice for your client. Ideally you want an experienced and shrewd quantity surveyor who can put sensible numbers on the unknown as well as the known, as the project develops, and also during construction. Which leads us to contingency.
Once the work starts, there is little option but to pursue it to completion. Almost always this involves additional scope of work that was not anticipated, and often this additional scope is substantial. Your client, therefore, should have a substantial contingency to hand, and then a backup plan for what to do if an even more substantial contingency is required for a “reasonable worst case”.
On this topic, it may be worth alerting your client to the obvious: that (at least in the short term) the added value to their building may well be less than the cost of the works. This is an even bigger risk in the current flat or falling property price environment. Some work in conjunction with a valuer, an estate agent and the quantity surveyor may be in order, so that your client can make informed decisions. For some clients, without access to sufficient contingency funds, cutting their losses and selling “as is”, may be the best course of action.
If the framing around the kitchen and bathroom are failing, for example, costs can escalate quickly. Similarly if that internal gutter leak has rotted out the inter-tenancy wall. Often it isn’t the cladding or the carpentry as such, but the knock-on effects of the work, that have the biggest cost impact.
If the cladding is failing for reasons of poor design and/or construction, that may not be an isolated problem. Consider whether fire, structural, plumbing and electrical work or even original survey set-out might prove to be of the same poor quality. Can that can be found out early, or in advance of works starting, and how it might it influence your client’s decision-making?
Easy (enough) to spot when it is the present outer cladding, if you know what you are looking for. But when the building was last re-clad or re-roofed, did they remove the old cladding or just tack a layer over the original ACM? Or is the present shadowclad outer layer on that villa just the crust on an ACM sandwich? Asbestos is a risk for any pre-2000 building, and especially worth being alert for in any building from the 1980s or earlier. Do not assume that a 1990s or 2000s conversion to apartments would have removed all the ACM from that old warehouse!
Remember that any claim “directly or indirectly arising out of, resulting from, in consequence of, contributed to or aggravated by asbestos in whatever form or quantity” is excluded from your PI and PL insurance policies. That’s common across multiple insurance providers. So consider carefully whether you are prepared (in every sense) to undertake work on a project where asbestos may be present.
Consider carefully before using a Schedule 1 exemption from Building Consent. Even if “like for like” is preferred, is it even now possible (for example, an obsolete system)? If working under Schedule 1, consider the risk that in the course of work you may find something that means you need a Building Consent after all.
Especially if you are replacing and upgrading insulation (and why wouldn’t you), consider the resulting wall and how it will perform as a system. It is no good fixing E2 problems just to develop new E3 issues… If you know the project is not going to address potential existing E3 issues in the building, this had better be very clearly discussed and agreement documented.
Keep good records, both of the work itself (lots of carefully filed and collated photos) and of project correspondence – especially advice you have given or received. Make sure the patient work that you do informing your client of risks, process and expectations is recorded in written form.
Have a clear scope of engagement that sets out terms and explains what happens if you need to do work over and above that scope.
Open the communication channels with all parties and keep the channels open. Make sure messages are received and understood.
Set a realistic fee for a full service: the project will need the time and attention.
When all is said and done, re-cladding is necessary work that demands careful attention to design, observation and contract administration, and so is work for architects! By all means take it on, but kia tūpato!