Building Commissioner targets the most dodgy private certifiers

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Published: Monday, 30 August 2021 14:25

The Building Commissioner has announced they are after the “most risky” New South Wales Private Certifiers. In an article in the SMH on 30 August, the Herald reported “almost a dozen certifiers considered the “most risky” in NSW will be put under intense scrutiny by the state’s construction watchdog as it attempts to instil public confidence in apartment buildings following the Opal and Mascot Towers sagas two years ago.”

The NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler announced the regulator had begun audits of eleven of “the “most risky certifiers” linked to 59 building projects suffering the most number of defects in Sydney and centres such as Wollongong, Newcastle and Tweed Heads”.

These dodgy certifiers have been ordered to submit all details of projects which are nearing completion and the Herald reports the regulator “researched more than 36,000 documents to help decide whom to audit”.

What a pity the Building Commissioner hasn’t got the staffing and resourcing we called for when David Shoebridge’s Committee looked at this in 2019.  Or the sort of resourcing the Upper House Committee called for. Useful timing, given that there is another Upper House Committee, chaired by the inimitable and tenacious David Shoebridge, starting later in the year.

We can think of a good number of our favourite private certifiers who should be nervous. How do you have struck off certifiers still running businesses and employing other people to carry on their historic standards?