What is a Building Warrant of Fitness?
A bit like your car’s WoF, a Building Warrant of Fitness (BWoF) is an annual certificate that shows certain safety features in a building known as ‘specified systems’ have been inspected, maintained and have performed as they should for the previous 12-month period. The purpose is to ensure that people can use the building without any risk to their health and safety.
What is a specified system?
A specified system is a system or feature that is contained within a building for the primary purpose of maintaining health or life safety of building users, for example a fire alarm, sprinklers, emergency lighting or lifts. Where one or more of these systems exist in a building, a compliance schedule and an annual BWoF is required.
What is a compliance schedule?
A compliance schedule is a document issued by the council during the building consent phase listing all specified systems in a building, and the frequency with which they should be inspected. It is then up to the building owner to ensure that these systems are maintained and inspected by Independent Qualified Persons (IQPs), and that a BWoF is submitted to the local council annually to show everything on the compliance schedule is in good working order.
Do all buildings need a BWoF?
No. Only buildings that contain one or more specified systems require a BWoF. These types of systems are more common in commercial, industrial and communal (public use) buildings. Single residential dwellings do not require a BWoF unless they have a cable car.
There are many hundreds of thousands of buildings in Auckland, including around 640,000 known dwelling units. Of all the residential and commercial buildings in Auckland, around 17,000 require a BWoF.
Who is responsible for carrying out inspections and issuing the BWoFs?
Issuing an annual BWoF certificate and providing a copy of this certificate to the council is the building owner’s responsibility.
In order for a building owner to issue a BWoF, they must engage certified inspectors known as Independent Qualified Persons (IQPs) to inspect the building’s specified systems at the intervals set out on the compliance schedule.
Along with a copy of the BWoF, the building owner must submit copies of the IQP inspection reports to the council.
What is an IQP?
An Independent Qualified Person (IQP) is a person identified by the council as being qualified to carry out any performance inspection, maintenance and reporting on a particular system or feature, such as fire alarms or lifts. IQPs (or IQP compliance companies) are employed by the building owner but must have the approval of the council to undertake the work.
The Council assesses IQPs to ensure they are appropriately qualified to undertake the work performed. You can find a list of registered IQPs in the Auckland region on the Auckland Council website.
What is the role of councils in relation to BWoFs?
As well as holding the records for BWoFs and registered IQPs, councils conduct audits of buildings to ensure that building owners and IQPs are meeting their obligations, and that the supplied documentation (including BWoF and IQP reports) is correct.
Different councils have different methods for conducting audits, with some reviewing documentation only and others (including Auckland Council) carrying out on-site inspections.
What happens during a council audit?
During site visits by Auckland Council building inspectors, they will check for a range of things, including: whether the current BWoF is on display and matches the Compliance Schedule, whether there are any specified systems which are not listed on the Compliance Schedule/BWoF, and whether inspection records for the past two years are readily available. They will cross-check their findings against records provided by building owners and IQPs to ensure the information provided is correct.
Note that building inspectors do not carry out inspections of the specified systems as these can only be conducted by IQPs, however they will walk through parts of the building and note any immediate issues that need addressing, such as blocked fire exits, broken emergency light fittings, missing exit signage or fire doors that do not self-close properly or are wedged open.
What happens if the council identifies issues during an audit inspection?
During the audit, the building inspector will speak with the building owner/manager about their findings and ensure any urgent issues are addressed. At the completion of the audit, the council will send the building owner written notification identifying any areas of non-compliance, the action required and timeframe to address the issue — for example, photo evidence that the BWoF is now prominently displayed.
In some cases, the council will need to conduct a follow-up visit to check that the issues have been addressed and that the building is now compliant with the Building Act. If the issues are not addressed within the timeframe specified then the council may issue a Notice to Fix, followed by enforcement action if this is not complied with.
If, during an audit, the council finds that work carried out by an IQP has been negligent, misleading, dishonest or incompetent, they will take disciplinary action against that IQP. That could range from a written warning through to suspension or deregistration.
How often does Auckland Council conduct BWoF audits?
There is no legislative requirement for councils to carry out audits within a certain timeframe, but Auckland Council aims to audit 20 per cent of all buildings with BWoFs in the Auckland region annually. Higher priority buildings (such as boarding houses) will be audited every year, while lower priority buildings may be audited at 3-5year intervals. There are 17,000 buildings with BWoFs in the Auckland region and 8-10 of the council’s building inspectors are auditing buildings at any one time during working hours.
