The boss of a fire protection company has admitted to forging a compliance document for a system his company installed at an apartment building in Auckland in 2023.
Parallel Fire Protection Limited had been sub-contracted to install a fire hydrant system in the North Shore building, a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) release said Monday.
Neil Gould was the sole director of the company, which installed systems which help to meet building consent requirements.
MBIE began investigating Gould after concerns were raised by Auckland Council in July 2024 about the authenticity of a verification of compliance certificate he had provided in relation to the installation.
On the certificate, Gould was found to have falsified details of a third party independent qualified person who would usually test and certify the fire hydrant system as operational.
The forged document been emailed by Gould to a company putting together the building's wider code compliance certificate application.
He was recently sentenced to three months community detention and ordered to pay $1000 in reparations to independent fire hydrant testing company Nova Flowtec Services.
MBIE building regulatory delivery national manager Sharon Threadwell said the case showed action would be taken if people were found abusing the system.
"All installations of fire hydrant systems must be certified as being compliant by a third-party independent inspection body and I’d like to thank Auckland Council for being diligent and raising their concerns."
"MBIE encourages building professionals, consent authorities and consumers to verify and report any compliance concerns around certification to MBIE."
Parallel Fire Protection Limited may be investigated by Registrar of Companies for potential breaches of the Companies Act 1993, the MBIE release said.
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