NZ has a $2.5b building defect problem. Will self-certification make it better or worse?

Building defects cost New Zealand an estimated two point five billion dollars annually — a massive drain on housing affordability. The government's response: expand self-certification, allowing trusted residential builders to inspect their own work and bypass some council oversight. But per The Conversation, construction researcher Mark Kirby warns that faster approvals won't fix the underlying problem. Depending on the build stage, between fourteen and thirty-seven percent of inspections fail on first attempt, and removing external checks risks letting defects go undetected rather than prevented. His recent field trial offers more hope: pre-inspection quality checks reduced first-time failures from thirty-two to twenty-seven percent, suggesting the real fix isn't fewer inspectors, but better quality control on-site.

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