Tara Murray
A local builder has had his registration cancelled and been disqualified from holding registrations for three years.
The Victorian Building Authority cancelled the license of Rocco Barba for numerous breaches of the Building Act, including allegedly providing false compliance certificates for a residential development, engaging in a sham building contract for the purposes of procuring a building permit and carrying out building works which significantly departed from the approved building permit documents.
The VBA found he is not a fit and proper person to hold registration as a building practitioner.
Mr Barba must also pay $38,000 to the VBA.
Mr Barba has applied to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) for review of the decision.
The basis of the VBA’s disciplinary action is that Mr Barba engaged in unprofessional conduct at a multi-dwelling domestic building site in Niddrie, near Keilor East in north-west Melbourne.
The side it a 15 unit residential development on land owned by a company controlled by the practitioner.
The VBA’s executive director regulatory operations David Brockman said Mr Barba provided the relevant building surveyor with false certificates for the installation of insulation and energy efficiency measures.
“Mr Barba ought to have known that the surveyor would rely on these certificates as evidence of the compliance of the works with the relevant energy efficiency requirements,” Mr Brockman said.
“He also allowed building work to be carried out which did not accord with the act, the regulations and the building permit. This is unacceptable and jeopardised the safety of consumers at the units.”
Mr Barba was also found to have carried out domestic building work while operating under a sham building contract entered into with a registered domestic builder in order to obtain a building permit.
The VBA has cancelled Mr Barba’s registration in the class of commercial builder, limited to the construction of low rise building work, and disqualified him from being registered as a building practitioner in any class for a period of three years.
