New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

Topic

Private building certifiers

Legal area

Court

9 May 2012

MCNAMARA AND ORS v AUCKLAND CITY COUNCIL SC 85/2010

Citation

MCNAMARA AND ORS v AUCKLAND CITY COUNCIL SC 85/2010
Court

Supreme Court

Majority held the appeal must be dismissed: Building Act 1991 s 50(1) required the territorial authority to accept certifier-issued certificates that were regular on their face and s 50(3) provided a qualified immunity for acts done in good faith in reliance on such certificates; absent actual knowledge that a certificate exceeded the certifier's authority (or notification under s 57), there was no duty to go behind a regular-on-its-face certificate and aggregation of officers' partial knowledge does not negate good faith; the negligent misstatement claim failed for like reasons
3 Jul 2009

PETER HARDIE MCNAMARA AND PATRICK STURGEON MCNAMARA V MALCOLM J LUSBY LIMITED AND ORS HC AK CIV 2006-404-002967

Citation

openlaw-ab7f30e3_169e_4606_a3c4_30a7d7fb2f8a.pdf
Court

High Court

Where a private certifier lacked authority to certify particular items and the TA knew or ought to have known of those limitations, the TA could not simply accept the certifier's CCC at face value for those items; the pleadings sufficiently alleged a duty to take reasonable steps to verify compliance and thus the strike out/summary judgment applications failed and must be dismissed.