Posted on June 22, 2026 by Megan Hawley 6

Building and completion approvals and pre fabricated buildings

The Building (Approvals and Practitioners) Bill 2026 was introduced into the NSW Parliament in May and proposes to consolidate provisions of the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act 1979 (EPA Act) and Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 and Building and Development Certifiers Act 2018 regarding approvals and oversight of building work. It also contains specific provisions regarding ‘prefabricated buildings’, and makes amendments to the Local Government Act 1993 (LG Act) in respect of such buildings.

This article will discuss the key changes to the current EPA Act regime for approval of buildings (and significantly the regime for issue of construction certificates(CCs), and occupation certificates (OCs)), and the changes in respect of prefabricated buildings.

CCs and OCs/Building Approvals and Completion Approvals

The Bill proposes to remove provisions regarding the issue and effect of CCs and OCs from the EPA Act.

The replacement provisions will be contained in the new ‘Building (Approvals and Practitioners) Act’ (new BAP Act) if made.

CCs are proposed to be called building approvals , and OCs will be completion approvals. Whilst building and completion approvals will be able to be issued by certifiers, whose registration is to be dealt with under the new BAP Act, the certifier will be referred to as an ‘approval authority’ when issuing a building or completion approval.

Many of the current provisions in respect of CCs and OCs have been moved with minor amendment into the proposed new BAP Act.

Some new noteworthy provisions in respect of building approvals and completion approvals are:

• there is a new provision to enable a building approval to be varied or issued in respect of work which has already commenced (called a post – commencement authorisation), which can be issued subject to conditions, including a requirement for rectification work to be done;
• as with a CC, a building approval forms part of a development consent, and the designs and declarations relied on in the granting of the building approval are also taken to form part of the building approval, and are therefore part of the development consent;
• there are specific provisions regarding ‘staged building work‘ recognising that a building approval may relate to a stage or part only of a building work.
• a completion approval (previously an OC) can relate to part only of a building;
• a completion approval can only be issued  if the building work has been carried out in accordance with the building approval (or a complying development certificate if there was an application for a CDC and no development application made), and the building work must be consistent with the development consent. This last requirement is new. Currently, there is no requirement to consider whether work as built complies with the development consent, before an OC is issued;
• the proposed new BAP Act includes provisions to the effect that a building approval or completion approval can only be issued if preconditions to the issue of that approval in a development consent have been satisfied. However, in respect of completion certificates, this does not apply if ‘the approval authority reasonably believes that it is not possible to comply with the conditions before the approval is issued’, or is not relevant to the building work or change of building use. This appears to give the approval authority significant power to issue a completion approval without preconditions in consents being complied with;
• there is no provision stating that any precondition to the issue of a building or completion approval in a planning agreement must be satisfied before the approval can be granted. This requirement is currently contained in the Environmental Planning and Assessment (Development Certification and Fire Safety) Regulation 2021, so possibly it will be contained in any new regulations under the new BAP Act.
• also, the completion approval, and documents relied on in issuing the completion approval will form part of the development consent or CDC.

Whilst the regime for building and completion approvals is moved to the new BAP Act, the provisions in the EPA Act regarding subdivision and subdivision works certificates and compliance certificates, remain in the EPA Act. Compliance certificates will no longer be able to be issued to certify that a condition with respect of building work has been complied with, but can still be issued to certify that an aspect of development complies with particular standards or requirements.

Prefabricated buildings

There are new provisions proposed to be included in the new BAP Act dealing with ‘prefabricated buildings’, and consequential amendments to the EPA Act and LG Act.

‘Prefabricated building’ will be defined to include components of a building manufactured away from the building site, including  ‘a substantially complete building or room’, a ‘modular building component’, and other things which may be prescribed by the regulations. A ‘moveable dwelling’ such as a caravan, is not a prefabricated building.

Importantly, the definition of ‘building in the EPA Act, which currently excludes a  ‘manufactured home, moveable dwelling or associated structure’ within the meaning of the LG Act, will be amended. The new definition (to be contained in the new BAP Act) will be ‘building includes the following, but does not include a moveable dwelling – part of a building, a structure, part of a structure‘.

Manufactured homes are therefore not excluded from the definition of a building, and nor are prefabricated buildings. This means that a building approval will be required for a manufactured home or prefabricated building.

There are proposed provisions regarding ‘prefabricated building declarations‘ being declarations made by manufacturers of the prefabricated building to the effect it complies with the Building Code of Australia and other requirements which regulations may prescribe, and compliance with ‘prefabricated buildings instructions’ prepared by the manufacturer. A building approval for a prefabricated building cannot be issued unless the prefabricated building declaration and prefabricated building instructions have been issued. The requirement to comply with those documents is a condition of the building approval.

The LG Act will be amended to delete the definitions of manufactured home and manufactured home estate, and:

• an approval under s68 will no longer be required for manufactured homes
• consequential amendments to the provisions regarding the issuing of orders will be made to delete reference to manufactured homes and manufactured home estates.

We will consider other aspects of the proposed new BAP Act and post further articles. We will also monitor its progress through parliament.

The Bill can be found here.