Schedule 1: what “you don’t need a consent for that” actually means.
Schedule 1 of the Building Act 2004 lists building work that does not need a building consent. It is the most quoted and least read part of New Zealand building law, because almost every exemption in it is conditional — and the conditions are where the exemption lives. Strip them off and you get a sentence that reads well on a forum and will not survive a property file.
Photography commissioned — plate reserved · July 2026
The structure
Three parts, doing three different things.
Knowing which part an exemption sits in tells you what else you have to arrange, because two of the three parts bring a licensed professional with them.
Part 1 — general exempted building work
The long list. Broadly: repair, maintenance and replacement of building components with comparable materials, plus a set of specific low-risk categories — small detached buildings, low decks and platforms, fences below a stated height, low retaining walls, certain awnings and porches, and more. Some of these categories are unconditional; many are not. Several depend on a Licensed Building Practitioner carrying out or supervising the work, and some depend on a Chartered Professional Engineer’s design.
Part 2 — sanitary plumbing and drainlaying
Work carried out under the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Act 2006. This part is routinely misread as “plumbing doesn’t need consent, so I can do it”. It does not say that. It says the work sits outside the building consent system because it is regulated by a different licensing regime, and that regime requires an authorised person.
Part 3 — designed or reviewed by a Chartered Professional Engineer
Building work that is exempt from a building consent because a CPEng has carried out or reviewed the design. The engineer is not a nice-to-have here. The engineer is the reason the exemption exists, so no engineer means no exemption.
What exempt does not get you
- Not a lower standard. The work still has to comply with the Building Code.
- Not an inspection. Nobody checks it, at any stage.
- Not a code compliance certificate. There is no CCC for exempt work, so there is no document proving it complies.
- Not a resource consent. Different Act, different rulebook, unaffected.
- Not a defence if you were wrong. If the conditions were not met, the work needed a consent, and it is unlawful building work — whatever you believed at the time.
The four ways this goes wrong
How an exemption fails in practice.
1. The condition was never checked
Someone reads “decks up to a certain height are exempt”, builds one a little higher because the ground falls away at the back, and never re-reads the clause. The exemption applied to a deck that was not built. This is the most common failure and the easiest to avoid.
2. “Comparable” was not comparable
Replacement with a comparable component is a genuine exemption, and it is doing a lot of work on re-roofing and re-cladding jobs. Tile to long-run steel changes the load. A different cladding system changes how water is managed. Neither is a like-for-like replacement, whatever the invoice says.
3. The wall was structural
Bracing is structural. An internal wall with a diagonal brace or a sheet-braced panel is part of how the house resists wind and earthquake, and removing it alters the primary structure. That is a consent and restricted building work, and no amount of “it wasn’t holding the roof up” changes it.
4. The Building Act was cleared and the Unitary Plan was not
The deck was exempt. The site was already at its impervious-area limit. Nobody looked, because the question everyone asked was about consent, singular. The difference between the two consents.
The 14 jobs
Which common Auckland jobs have an exemption available, and what each exemption turns on.
Restricted building work
The exemptions that require an LBP, and how to check the practitioner you have been given.
How long, and how much
What you save by being exempt, and what a consent buys you that exempt work does not.
Questions people actually ask
What is Schedule 1 of the Building Act?
It is the list of building work you may carry out without a building consent. It runs in three parts: general exempted building work, which is largely repair, maintenance and replacement with comparable materials plus a set of specific low-risk categories; sanitary plumbing and drainlaying carried out under the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Act 2006; and building work whose design is carried out or reviewed by a Chartered Professional Engineer. Several exemptions in the first part also depend on a Licensed Building Practitioner carrying out or supervising the work.
Does exempt work still have to comply with the Building Code?
Yes. This is the most misunderstood thing about Schedule 1. Exempt means Council does not check the design beforehand and does not inspect the work. It does not lower the standard the work has to meet. If exempt work does not comply, it is non-compliant building work, and there is no code compliance certificate to prove otherwise, because exempt work does not get one.
If my work is exempt, do I need a resource consent?
Possibly. The two systems are independent. Schedule 1 is a Building Act list; resource consent comes from the Resource Management Act through the Auckland Unitary Plan. Exempt work can still breach building coverage, impervious area, yards or height in relation to boundary, and it can still need resource consent under a Special Character or Historic Heritage overlay.
Can Auckland Council grant an exemption for work that would otherwise need consent?
Council can consider granting an exemption for building work that is minor or low risk. It is an application and a decision, not an entitlement, and it is made on the facts of your job. Council’s exemptions page is where that process starts. Assuming an exemption will be granted, and building on that assumption, is how people end up needing a certificate of acceptance.
Should I record exempt work anywhere?
Yes, and Council offers a way to add a record of exempt building work to your property file. Do it. A future buyer’s lawyer looking at a bathroom that appeared between two sets of plans cannot tell the difference between “lawfully exempt” and “nobody asked”. A dated record, with the LBP’s details and photographs of what was behind the linings, is worth more at sale than it costs you today.
Does exempt work need a Licensed Building Practitioner?
Sometimes, and where it does, that is part of the exemption rather than an optional extra. Several exemptions apply only if an LBP carries out or supervises the work, and one whole part of Schedule 1 applies only where a Chartered Professional Engineer has designed or reviewed the work. Skip the practitioner and you have not met the exemption, which means the work needed a consent after all.
Who this site is. Renovate Auckland is an independent Auckland reference site published by Amit Sharma. It is not Auckland Council, it is not MBIE, and it is not your consent authority. The trade partner who would carry out work is still being confirmed, so this site claims no licence number, no guarantee and no trade-association membership. Send a brief and you get a straight answer about who would do the work.