Who pays for compliance, monitoring and enforcement

Councils may pass on to the consent holder the actual and reasonable costs of checking for compliance with resource consents. 

Sometimes, your council may need you to pay some costs in a fixed fee or deposit before you begin the activity. This may include, but is not limited to, the cost of time spent on:

• site inspections or reviewing and/or assessing information submitted about consent compliance, including any travel time, and health and safety tasks for an inspection
• preparing and sending correspondence about compliance with a consent
• assessing non-compliance or preparing notices
• administration such as data entry or records maintenance.

Talk to your local council about any charges or fees.

Even if you don’t need a resource consent for your activity, you may face compliance checks or inspections on a permitted activity. Sometimes you can be charged for these. If you are unsure whether you might be liable for these costs, check with your local or regional council.

If the council takes enforcement action, you may have to pay for its time and resources. This could include the enforcement officer’s time, legal fees and technical expert fees.

If the enforcement escalates to court and you are found guilty or liable in a prosecution or other enforcement, the court may direct you to pay all or part of the costs of the council’s investigation.

The council publishes the hourly rate you may have to pay for compliance work in its annual plan documents.

For more information, contact your council.