Do I need an IQP for my building?

If your building has a compliance schedule — which covers virtually all commercial buildings and any residential building with a cable car — then yes. You need an IQP approved for each specified system on the schedule, and their Form 12A certificates are what your annual Building Warrant of Fitness is built from.

Can one IQP cover all the specified systems in a building?

Only if they are approved for all of them, which is uncommon in larger buildings. Most buildings use several IQPs. One IQP can issue a Form 12A covering procedures carried out by another, but who does that needs to be agreed at the outset rather than assumed.

Can our own maintenance contractor be our IQP?

Only if the council has approved them as an IQP for that system, and only if they have no financial interest in the building. A contractor who maintains the system can also inspect it, provided they hold the approval — but a person with an ownership stake in the building cannot.

What happens if the IQP refuses to issue a Form 12A?

They are required to refuse if any procedure on the compliance schedule was missed. The Building Act provides no exemption. The correct response is a BWoF Report and Declaration process rather than finding a different IQP.

What is an IQP and do you need one?

Q: What is an IQP and do you need one?

An Independent Qualified Person is approved by a territorial authority as qualified to inspect particular specified systems in a building. "Independent" means no financial interest in the building. If your building has a compliance schedule, you need an IQP for each system on it — they issue the Form 12A certificates your annual BWoF is built from.

Most building owners meet the acronym IQP for the first time in an email that says a Form 12A cannot be issued. It is a poor introduction.

What an IQP actually is

An Independent Qualified Person is a person or firm approved by a territorial authority — your council — as qualified to inspect a particular specified system and to ensure that necessary maintenance occurs.

Three things follow from that definition and each of them matters.

Approval is by system, not general. An IQP approved for emergency lighting is not thereby approved for lifts, backflow preventers or mechanical ventilation. The council's register lists which systems each IQP covers.

Approval is by council. It is a local approval, held on a local register. A large national provider will typically hold approvals across many districts, but the approval itself is granted district by district.

It is not a qualification you sit an exam for. It is an approval granted on the basis of experience, qualifications and competence in that system, assessed by the council. There is no national IQP licence.

What "independent" means

This is narrower than people assume, and it is worth being precise because the assumption causes real problems.

Independent means the person has no financial interest in the building.

It does not mean independent of the maintenance contractor. A firm that services your emergency lighting can also be your IQP for that system, provided the council has approved them and they have no stake in the building itself. That arrangement is extremely common and entirely proper.

What it rules out is the owner, part-owner or anyone with a financial interest in the property signing off their own building.

If that sits uncomfortably — the same firm doing the work and certifying it — you are not wrong to notice. The protection sits elsewhere: an IQP who certifies falsely faces fines of up to $50,000 as an individual, or $150,000 for a body corporate. That is a meaningful deterrent, and it is why a competent IQP will refuse to sign rather than accommodate you.

Do you need one?

If your building has a compliance schedule, yes.

Under the Building Act 2004, all buildings other than single residential buildings require a compliance schedule and an annual BWoF if they contain any specified system — automatic fire suppression, emergency warning systems, emergency lighting, lifts, mechanical ventilation, smoke control and the rest of the list. Any residential building with a cable car needs one too.

In practice that is nearly every commercial building in New Zealand.

The compliance schedule tells you which procedures need an IQP and which the owner can carry out. Most specified systems require at least an annual IQP inspection, and some require more frequent attendance — six-monthly or quarterly. For emergency lighting, the monthly check is commonly an owner task and the periodic inspections are IQP tasks. See how often emergency lighting needs testing.

Form 12A — the document that matters

The Form 12A is the certificate an IQP issues confirming that the inspection, maintenance and reporting procedures in the compliance schedule, for their system, have been carried out over the previous 12 months.

Your Building Warrant of Fitness is assembled from these. No Form 12As, no BWoF.

In most buildings each IQP issues their own Form 12A for the systems they cover. It is possible for one IQP to issue a Form 12A covering procedures carried out by another, but — and this is the practical warning — who is issuing what needs to be established when the IQP is first engaged. Buildings with four or five IQPs and no agreement about who covers what discover the gap in the week the BWoF is due.

An IQP is prohibited from issuing a Form 12A for a system unless all the compliance schedule procedures for that system have been fully complied with in the period. MBIE is explicit that the Building Act provides no flexibility or exemptions to this requirement. A missed monthly check is not something a reasonable IQP can overlook — it is something they are legally barred from overlooking.

If procedures have been missed, there is a proper route through it. See missing a BWoF inspection.

Finding an IQP for your building

The first step is your council. Territorial authorities maintain an IQP register, usually published on their website, and it identifies which specified systems each IQP is approved to inspect.

Work from the register rather than from a search engine. A firm can market IQP services nationally while not holding approval in your district for your system.

When you engage one, settle these at the start:

Which specified systems are they approved for in this district? Ask to see it on the council register.
Which systems on my schedule are they covering, and who covers the rest?
Who issues which Form 12A?
Will they train the staff doing the owner-carried-out checks, and record that training? Compliance schedules commonly make this the IQP's responsibility.
What records do they need from us, in what format, and when?
When in the year will they attend? Book it a year ahead rather than reacting.

What an IQP cannot do for you

Three limits worth understanding before you rely on the relationship.

They cannot fix your records retrospectively. If a monthly check was not done, it was not done. An IQP who signs anyway is committing an offence, and you would be relying on somebody's willingness to break the law on your behalf.

They do not own your compliance. The Building Act puts the obligation on the building owner. The IQP inspects and certifies; the owner is responsible for ensuring the systems are maintained and the BWoF is supplied and displayed. Owners face fines up to $20,000 for BWoF offences, with instant fines from $250 to $1,000, and a notice to fix that is not complied with escalates dramatically from there.

They are not obliged to chase you. A good one will. But the diary is yours.

Getting value out of the relationship

The buildings that run smoothly treat the IQP as a source of information rather than a signature at year end.

An IQP can recommend changes to the inspection and maintenance procedures where a system needs something different to keep performing. Those recommendations go to the council with your BWoF, and if you agree with them you can apply to amend the compliance schedule. That is the proper route when a building has changed — after a fitout that altered the fitting count, for instance — rather than quietly maintaining a different building from the one described on the schedule.

The other thing worth asking every year: is anything on this schedule now wrong? Buildings change. Schedules do not, unless somebody amends them. A schedule describing a building that no longer exists is a slow-motion BWoF failure.