Certificate of Acceptance (CoA)

A Certificate of Acceptance may be issued by Council for building work that did not have building consent if, on reasonable grounds, the aforementioned building work complies with the current New Zealand Building Code.

A Certificate of Acceptance (CoA) can usually be issued for work done after 1 July 1992.

There are two situations where a CoA would be issued, these are work done under urgency/emergency situation and work that has been carried out without a building consent when it was reasonable to do so. For further details on each situation see below.

This is work which needs to be undertaken to protect lives or property from danger and the time it takes to obtain a building consent would be unreasonable and increase the length of exposure to the risk. Section 41 of the Building Act 2004.

This could be when:

• an owner (or previous owner) should have got a building consent but didn’t (under either the 1991 or 2004 Building Act)
• an accredited building consent authority that is not a territorial authority or regional authority granted consent but is unable or refuses to issue a Code Compliance Certificate

When applying for a Certificate of Acceptance the construction documents, plans and specifications are the same as if a building consent was being applied for but with added verification showing how the actual construction meets the requirements of the plans and specifications and, in turn, how compliance with the New Zealand Building Code has been achieved.

If the application is declined, Council must issue a Notice to Fix which will set out what remedial works needs to be done so the work complies. You can apply for a CoA by logging into the Simpli website and completing an online application.