LBPs are designers, carpenters, brick and blocklayers, roofers, external plasterers, site and foundations specialists who have been assessed to be competent to carry out work essential to a residential building's structure or weathertightness.
If you’re thinking of getting building or renovation work done on your house or apartment, you need to check if it’s ‘restricted building work’ (RBW). If it is, you’ll need a licensed building practitioner – or LBP – to do it.
Restricted building work involves the building’s structure, weathertightness, and design of fire safety systems.
Because this work is so important, it’s only allowed to be done by licensed building practitioners (LBPs). LBPs are assessed before getting licensed, and have to maintain their skills to keep their licence.
Restricted building work, and the requirement to use LBPs to do it, was brought in on 1 March 2012 (through changes to the Building Act 2004).
For more information or to check if your preferred contractor is an LBP go to www.lbp.govt.nz