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Government Finally Acknowledges Problem

Government Finally Acknowledges Problem – But Where’s the Solution?

Lack of consumer education major contributor to building problems says publisher of consumer Building Guide magazine and website.

“The Minister of Building and Housing has finally acknowledged there’s a problem with the quality of building work being done,” says the publisher of the Building Guide, Mark Graham, “but actions from his own ministry have directly contributed to the problem.”

“Auckland Council are failing 30-40% of inspections, slab repairs are failing in Christchurch and we have substandard taps, many likely with lead leaching into drinking water, being installed into homes,” says Graham, “People think the Leaky Home disaster is history – well, it’s happening all over again and in different ways now.”

“Report after report has come out year after year identifying consumer education as being a priority to create better building outcomes and better productivity has been ignored by the Minister and MBIE.”

What’s worse is that the situation is of the Government’s own creation.

“They ignored the decimation of the industry during the GFC that say building activity drop to just one third of its previous peak. Thousands of skilled tradespeople left the industry, too few houses were being built (now also directly contributing to the housing crisis), and now the industry has rebounded there are too many unskilled workers doing shoddy work. It’s a disgrace!”

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“A survey done on the Building Guide website last year shows that just 17% of builders are handing out the mandatory ‘Prescribed Checklist’ to their clients which sets out a list of the things of which builders need to have a clear understanding with their clients – including a contract for work with a value of more than $30,000, a clear understanding of the scope of work, and that the client has to be ‘informed about building’, however MBIE have not defined what ‘informed’ means and so builders and designers pretty much ignore it and there is no come back,” Graham says.

“MBIE spent around $400,000 on a consumer education campaign that ran for just three months and they have done nothing since then. There have been an additional 20,000 people seeking consents for new buildings and roughly the same number for renovation consents and yet these new people are being ignored.”

“And homeowners are no better. Of the 17,000 visitors to the Building Guide website last month, 5500 looked at how much will it cost to build and just 50 went to the page titled ‘Your Responsibilities’.

“Consumers want to look at pretty pictures and spend more time trying to work out what their build will cost them in dollar terms than learning about what can go wrong on a building project with the potential for years of remediation work and negative impacts on their health if things go wrong – and they often do. Even though they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and they will be living in that house for many years they’d rather spend time choosing tiles for their bathroom,” says Graham.

“Builders have said to me that a client with a bit of knowledge is a pain in the arse, and architects have looked at me and said, ‘but I do that for them’,” he went on, “and yet consistently we hear stories of poor workmanship, poor design and it just shows the lack of industry concern in making sure clients know what’s going on.”

“We have regularly approached MBIE over the past decade that we’ve been publishing the Building Guide to work together to educate consumers and every time we get rebuffed. Their answer is that their role is policy, not education. Christchurch council reported handing out 1000 Building Guides in just 40 minutes at the Christchurch Home Show last year, so clearly there are some consumers who want that information, but unless there’s MBIE and industry commitment to consumer education, we will continue to end up with too much substandard housing.”

Mark Graham has been publishing the Building Guide for a decade, BoB for seven years, Design Guide for five years and Yiju – the NZ Property Investment and Building Guide (Mandarin, for Chinese migrants and investors) and regularly appears in the media commenting on building and housing issues.

The Building Guide is the preeminent guide for consumers who are building and renovating. It is an advertising supported guide to regulations and processes around building and renovating, given free to councils around the country (with the exception of Auckland Council), Home Ideas Centres, is distributed free to Master and Certified Builders and some Licensed Builders, NZ IA and ADNZ members for passing on to their clients and is also available via selected retail outlets.

Design Guide is a guide for consumers wanting to understand house design and is themed, with case studies written by architects and is available via selected retail outlets including Pak n’Saves, New Worlds, Whitcoull’s, Paper Plus and independent bookstores.

ENDS

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