Message from the Group Technical Manager

Maintenance Schedules – wrapping your homeowner in care

Housing stock in New Zealand has a relatively short life cycle and in part, this is because of the low investment in maintenance we make as Kiwis. As a way of ensuring New Zealand residential property owners have the correct information on hand to care and preserve their property investment, the New Zealand Government introduced a law in 2014. This law requires the principle contractor to hand on maintenance and warranty information on completion of their building work.

To date, I have not seen this law tested. However, recently New Zealand Certified Builders did receive a phone call which started me thinking about how this may play out if a builder did fail to pass on the required maintenance information. A builder had received a phone call from a homeowner, claiming their marble kitchen countertops were staining. Upon investigation, the builder was informed that marble is a substrate which reacts on contact with acid such as a tomato, and that the substrate should in fact be sealed every three to six months. This begs the question of who would be responsible for any damage or repair because, after all, the builder did not cause the staining.

Unfortunately for the builder, they do have a duty under the Building Act to pass this information on to the homeowner via a maintenance and warranty schedule. Assuming the builder did not bother in this instance, I could image the homeowner informing a Judge or Dispute Tribunal referee, that if they had received this information, they most certainly would have applied the care required of their beautiful countertops, rather than deal with the staining. This now puts the builder in a precarious position, and they would need to produce evidence to demonstrate the information was in fact given to the homeowner, who then simply failed to apply the preventative maintenance. If the builder could not offer this evidence, then I would suggest a good place to start would be to seek some very good legal advice. Any reasonable person may suggest this information is readily available to the homeowner anyway and it would not have made any difference had the builder provided this detail amongst a pile of other warranty and maintenance information. While this does hold an element of truth, it is not a reasonable excuse as to why the builder failed with their obligations under the Building Act… that is to pass this information on as ‘the supplier of’ under the signed building contract.

The law requires the principle contractor to hand on maintenance and warranty information on completion of their building work.

So, why bother making the effort when it is a tiresome and costly exercise hunting down warranty and maintenance information? The answer is simple, New Zealand law treats the homeowner as naive and the building professional as just that, a ‘professional’

who wraps the homeowner in care – from ‘start to finish’.