Written by Amendments to the Residential Apartment Buildings (Compliance and Enforcement Powers) Act 2020 (NSW) (RAB Act), and the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 (NSW) (DBP Act) have been made under the Building Legislation Amendment Act which was passed on 8 June 2021. The Act aims to strengthen the powers of the NSW Building Commissioner and NSW Fair Trading to enforce the new regulatory scheme and introduce a new levy on developers to pay for the administration of the DBP Act.
The levy which is payable by developers is designed to provide an ongoing source of funding to the regulator, to administer the new practitioner registration scheme and conduct occupation certificate audits. The levy to operate the scheme is hoped to avoid defects and rectification costs during a project’s life cycle.
In addition to the existing penalties under the RAB Act, the Amending Act imposes daily penalties for each day a developer fails to notify the Secretary for the Department of Customer Service of the intended completion date or a change of expected completion date – both of which are subject to significant fines.