The Home Building Act is widely recognised as tortuous and impenetrable. Its annual rounds of heavy amendments have set a high level of user unfriendliness. To the uninitiated, large swathes of the Act seem to have little to do with the regulation of residential building work.
The Department of Fair Trading acknowledges the complexity and problems with the act and now appears to be moving to address them. The department has resolved to undertake a re-write of the act that not only involves a restructure, but a review of much of the regulation of residential building work in New South Wales.
In a recent address to the Northern Suburbs Division of the Master Builders Association, Steve Griffin, the General Manager of the department explained that the starting point is on a blank sheet and nothing in the Act is immune from review. Work on the re‑write is already under way with the department currently reviewing interstate legislation.
