Why Building Consents Often Take Far Longer Than 20 Working Days?

Under the Building Act 2004, councils have 20 working days to process a Building Consent application. That’s true — but it’s only part of the story. What most people don’t realise is that the clock councils use to measure that 20 days can stop, start, and be paused many times during a consent process, meaning a consent that takes three, four or even six months can still, on paper, fit within that statutory timeframe.

Here’s how that works in practice. When you lodge a building consent application with a territorial authority, such as Auckland Council or Tauranga City Council, the statutory clock must start ticking on the next working day. That initial period should run up to 20 working days — roughly four weeks — for council to decide whether it can issue the consent or needs more information.

In real life, however, councils frequently issue “Requests for Information” (RFIs) during that first review. An RFI isn’t a rejection — it’s a formal request from council staff asking the applicant to provide additional details, clarify drawings or supply missing documents so the council can be confident the proposal complies with the Building Code.

At this point, the council’s statutory clock stops. The legal basis for this sits in section 48 of the Building Act 2004, which states:

“A building consent authority may, within the period specified in subsection (1A), require further reasonable information in respect of the application, and, if it does so, the period is suspended until it receives that information.”

On the surface, the wording appears clear: once the requested information is received, the clock should resume. In practice, however, this is where the process enters a grey area. Councils retain discretion to determine whether the information provided fully satisfies the request, and whether it can be considered “received” for the purposes of restarting the statutory clock.

If the response is deemed incomplete, unclear, or raises further questions, councils may issue follow-up queries or additional RFIs before formally resuming processing. During this back-and-forth, the clock can remain suspended, even though weeks — or months — may pass in real time. As a result, an application can experience a lengthy overall delay while still being recorded as processed within the statutory 20 working days.

Concerns about this stop–start system have been raised publicly by both industry and government. In a March 2025 RNZ report, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk criticised councils for routinely “stopping the clock” on building consent applications, after MBIE data showed that more than 64 percent of applications were paused while further information was requested. Penk said the delays carried a “staggering cost”, noting that even a short pause caused by an RFI could add thousands of dollars per dwelling, slowing construction and affecting builders, businesses and families waiting for homes to be completed.

Councils say RFIs exist to ensure the safety and compliance of buildings, and that it’s better to ask questions early than to approve something that might later fail to meet the Building Code. But to applicants who are juggling finance, timelines and trades, the stop–start nature of consent processing can feel bewildering.

Developers have shared their frustrations publicly. In one past Herald report, a developer in Tauranga said it took more than a year to get consent to build 48 social houses, far exceeding expectations and delaying urgently needed homes.

For anyone involved in building or renovating in New Zealand, it helps to know that the “20 working days” rule is real — but it doesn’t measure the full time between lodgement and approval. It measures only the periods when the council’s clock is officially running.