Description

The intent of this guidance document is to help improve understanding of what rules apply to tiny houses and what requirements need to be considered before building a tiny house.

This guidance ensures that tiny houses as buildings are safe, healthy and durable for their intended use.

The term tiny house is not defined in either the Building Act or the Building Regulations. A tiny house may be a building in terms section 8 of the Building Act providing certain criteria are met. This guidance sets out how these criteria might be applied.

This guidance is to help you to determine if your tiny house is a building or a vehicle, or both a building under the Building Act and a vehicle, and the ways to comply with the relevant law/s that you may need to consider.

Scope

This guidance seeks to provide clarity on:

• the meaning of building and vehicle
• when and how tiny houses interact with the Building Act 2004 and the Building Code, including whether these tiny houses are subject to the requirements of the Building Act and require a building consent
• ways to comply with the Building Code
• why it is important to apply the Building Code to buildings that people live in
• the building consenting process for immovable tiny houses.