Submission to the Banking Royal Commission
The ACA has joined forces with the Australian Institute of Architects and the ArchiTeam Cooperative to condemn the unfair treatment of industry-standard construction contracts by banks in a submission to the Banking Royal Commission.
For some time, the ACA, the Institute and ArchiTeam have noted a growing number of member complaints over banks refusing to lend to consumers who wish to use architect-administered construction contracts. The joint submission was made to the Banking Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry following a snapshot survey of members and an analysis of the project information collected.
One thing was crystal clear. Loan refusal based on architect-administered construction contracts is a significant problem in the industry – it’s anti-competitive, has an enormous financial impact on architects and their clients, creates more risk, and reduces the quality of the built environment.
‘Unfair lending conditions ultimately remove choice for consumers, adding cost risk to construction projects for consumers and excluding architects from practising their profession,’ said ACA’s Kieran Wong.
You can read the full submission here and Warwick Mihaly’s analysis of the snaphot survey here.