BuildLaw: In Brief requirements and apply best practice methods when undertaking home building projects.” The sponsored standards and handbook, which can be accessed from the Standards New Zealand website, are: • Design for access and mobility: Buildings and associated facilities (NZS 4121:2001) - provides solutions for making buildings and facilities accessible to and usable by people with disabilities. • Housing, alterations and small buildings contract (NZS 3902:2004) - a plain English standard building contract. • Thermal insulation - housing and small buildings (NZS 4218:2009) - helps establish the levels of thermal insulation for houses and small buildings. • Interconnected smoke alarms for houses (NZS 4514:2009) - provides information about the placement and audibility of smoke alarms. • Safety barriers and fences around swimming pools, spas and hot tubs (NZS 8500:2006) - describes barriers for residential pools including ways to assess their strength. • Handbook on Timber-framed buildings (selected extracts from NZS 3604:2011) - figures and tables to help design and construct timber-framed buildings up to three storeys high. “MBIE will continue to make the building system more accessible with further enhancements to Building CodeHub and considering ways to improve access to more design and construction building standards,” says Ms Salesa.
New ethical requirements for architects
The purpose of registration is to ensure that architects are competent and reputable, so that the public can rely on them. To this end, in all their dealings, architects must comply with the Code of Minimum Standards of Ethical Conduct for Registered Architects, which binds them to a standard of conduct. A new updated ethical code for architects came into force on 1 January 2018. This includes an obligation to agree on written terms of appointment for provision of professional services. The Registered Architects Amendment Rules 2017 amend the Registered Architects Rules 2006 and replace the ‘Code of minimum standards of ethical conduct for registered architects’ with an updated code. New obligations for registered architects include: • if the architect's advice is not followed, there is an obligation to advise the recipient of the advice of any risk of significant harm or damage that may result;
• an obligation to report any architectural matter with which the architect is professionally involved that could put the safety of any person at risk; • an obligation to provide professional services only after written terms of appointment are agreed; and • an obligation to advise clients of significant issues in a timely manner.
The written terms of appointment must cover the scope of the work, the allocation of responsibilities, any limitation of responsibilities, fees or the method for calculating fees, and how billing will occur.
The new rules also make some changes to the disciplinary hearing processes.
prescribed criteria without maintenance; • The contracts did require the windfarms to have a lifetime of 20 years, although that requirement was only contained in the tender documents. The terms of the contract clearly gave the relevant part of the tender documents contractual effect.