CPD exemptions in NSW: the narrow grounds, and how to ask properly

Every year, builders reach the end of a renewal cycle short of the CPD points they need and look for a way out. The most common idea is that the regulator will accept an explanation — a busy year, a big project, a stretch where the office was short-staffed. It will not. The exemption provisions in NSW are narrow, they rest on specific grounds, and they are decided at renewal rather than in advance.

Understanding why the grounds are narrow makes the process easier to work with. The CPD requirement exists because a licence is a statement that the holder can do the work safely and to standard. If a builder could defer the requirement whenever work was heavy, the requirement would mean nothing during exactly the periods when the risk on site is highest. The exemption therefore exists for circumstances where the licence holder genuinely could not participate, not for circumstances where participation was inconvenient.

This article sets out what the grounds are, how a request is made, what supporting material is worth gathering, and what happens when a request is refused. It assumes you already understand the points system; if you need that foundation, the PointCPD guide to how NSW builder CPD works covers it.

Who actually carries the CPD obligation

Before you can ask for an exemption, you need to be clear about who is asking. The requirement applies to individuals licensed as a builder or swimming pool builder under the Home Building Act 1989. That means the holder of a contractor licence and the holder of a qualified supervisor certificate. A company licence or a partnership licence does not itself do CPD. The individuals behind it do.

This matters for exemptions because the ground attaches to the individual, not the business. If the nominated supervisor of a company licence is seriously ill and cannot earn points, that is a potential ground for that individual. If the company had a difficult year commercially, that is not a ground for anyone. The obligation sits with a person, and so does the exemption.

It also matters for record-keeping. If two people in the business hold certificates, each keeps their own diary and their own supporting evidence. A combined folder is fine for convenience, but an audit will look for the points earned by each individual against their own licence number.

The two grounds: serious illness and misadventure

NSW allows an exemption only for serious illness or misadventure. Both words are doing work.

Serious illness means an illness of a severity that prevented the licence holder from participating in CPD. A short illness that kept you off site for a week does not usually meet that bar, because the CPD year is long and points can be earned at any time within it. What tends to qualify is an illness that occupied a substantial part of the CPD year, or that occurred at the point in the cycle where the remaining time was not enough to earn the points required.

Misadventure means an event outside your control that prevented participation. The classic example is a serious accident or a sudden event that consumed the period. The word does not stretch to cover commercial events. A contract falling over, a client withholding payment, or a supplier failing to deliver are business risks, not misadventures in this sense.

Between them, the two grounds cover a narrow band. The test is not whether the year was hard. The test is whether you could not participate because of illness or an event beyond your control.

Why being busy is not a ground

The most frequent question put to the regulator is whether workload can support an exemption. It cannot, and the reason is structural rather than bureaucratic.

CPD points can be earned at any time in the twelve months before renewal. Online learning is available, and it does not require you to leave site for a day. A builder who is flat out on a project in March can still earn points in July, or in November, or in the weeks before renewal. The requirement is not that you attend at a particular time; it is that you accumulate the points within the year.

If workload were accepted as a ground, the practical effect would be that the busiest builders — the ones running the largest and most complex jobs — would be the least likely to keep their knowledge current. That is the opposite of what the requirement is for. The regulator knows this, which is why the grounds are drafted tightly.

There is a commercial dimension here as well. A builder who plans to rely on an exemption rather than earning points is taking a risk that the request will be refused, and a refusal at renewal is expensive. The licence cannot be renewed or restored until the requirement is met. In the meantime, the business cannot contract legally for residential building work. That cost dwarfs the cost of earning the points.

When and how the request is made

The exemption is requested on a Request for Exemption form, and it is requested at renewal. This timing is not incidental. The renewal process is where the regulator assesses whether the CPD requirement has been met, and the exemption is the mechanism by which a licence holder asks to be excused from it for that cycle. There is no separate application window earlier in the year, and there is no way to pre-clear a future shortfall.

Practically, this means the decision point is the same as the renewal decision point. If you lodge a renewal with a shortfall and an exemption request, both are resolved together. If the request succeeds, the renewal proceeds. If it fails, the shortfall stands and the renewal is refused until the points are earned.

That timing creates a planning problem. By the time renewal arrives, you have run out of runway. If you think you may be in a position to seek an exemption, the sensible course is to gather the supporting material as the events occur, not to reconstruct it months later. A medical certificate issued in the week of an admission is more persuasive than a letter from a GP written after the renewal notice arrives.

What supporting material to gather

The form asks you to establish the ground. The material you attach is what does the establishing. What is appropriate depends on the ground, but the principle is the same: documents created at the time, by someone other than you, that show the nature and duration of the event.

• Medical certificates covering the period affected, with dates that line up with the CPD year.
• Hospital admission or discharge records, where the illness involved treatment.
• Specialist reports or treatment plans, where the condition was ongoing.
• Police or emergency service reports, where the misadventure was an accident or similar event.
• Insurance or statutory declarations, where they corroborate the event and its timing.

Two practical points. First, the material should cover the period, not just the event. A certificate saying you were unwell on a single day does not explain a shortfall across a year. A certificate covering the weeks or months you could not participate does. Second, the material should connect to the CPD year. A hospital admission that occurred before the CPD year began is unlikely to explain why points were not earned during it.

Keep a copy of everything you lodge. It belongs in the same file as your CPD diary and evidence, and it should be retained for the same period. If you are audited later, you may need to show why a particular year was treated the way it was.

What an audit looks like if you have claimed an exemption

Building Commission NSW runs both regular and random audits of CPD compliance. Compliance is self-recorded: you keep the diary and the supporting evidence, and nothing is submitted to the regulator unless you are audited. An exemption does not remove you from that system. It changes what you need to demonstrate for the affected year.

In an audit, the usual question is whether the points claimed were genuinely earned and properly documented. If you claimed an exemption, the question becomes whether the ground was properly established. That is why the quality of the supporting material matters. A file containing a form and a brief note is not the same as a file containing dated certificates and reports.

The retention period for CPD records is three renewal periods. Treat exemption material the same way. If an audit reaches back into a year where you claimed an exemption, you want the documents to still exist and to still be legible.

Worked example: a serious illness across the CPD year

A builder in western Sydney holds a contractor licence and works as the nominated supervisor for a small company. In the middle of the CPD year he is diagnosed with a condition that requires surgery and a prolonged recovery. He is off site for an extended period and, when he returns, the business is behind and the remaining months are consumed by catching up. The renewal notice arrives and he is short of the points required.

On these facts, serious illness is the ground to consider. The material that supports it is the hospital admission record, the surgeon’s report, and certificates covering the recovery period. Together they show that a substantial part of the CPD year was not available to him. He completes the Request for Exemption form, attaches the material, and lodges it with the renewal.

Note what he does not rely on. He does not argue that the business was busy on his return, or that the shortfall was small, or that he has a long unblemished record. Those points may be true, but they are not the ground. The request stands or falls on the illness and the evidence of it.

If the request is refused, the position is straightforward and unpleasant. The renewal is refused until the points are earned. He would need to earn the shortfall and renew, and the business would be unable to enter new residential building contracts in the meantime. That is the cost of an exemption that does not land.

Planning around the narrow grounds

The sensible way to treat exemptions is as a backstop for a genuine crisis, not as a feature of the annual plan. The points requirement is modest relative to the year available, and online learning means it can be met without leaving site. A builder who spreads the points across the year and checks the running total before renewal will almost never need to think about an exemption.

Where a genuine crisis does occur, the discipline is to gather the evidence as it happens. Ask the treating practitioner for certificates that cover the period, keep the admission records, and note the dates. When renewal arrives, the request is a matter of assembling what you already have rather than trying to reconstruct a year.

If you do find yourself short and without a ground, the remedy is to earn the points. The PointCPD guide to what to do when you have missed CPD sets out the options, and the article on shortfall and renewal consequences explains what is at stake if the requirement is not met. The PointCPD course catalogue lists approved-topic courses that count towards the points, and the PointCPD home page is the starting point for NSW builder CPD.

One further point on structure. If you hold a certificate through a company or partnership, be clear about whose obligation you are dealing with. The article on the CPD obligation and company licences covers how the requirement falls on individuals rather than the entity, and the guide to CPD evidence that survives an audit covers how to keep the file in order. Both are relevant if you are considering an exemption, because the same evidence discipline applies to the exemption material itself.

Answering the question properly

An exemption request is a short, factual document backed by evidence. It is not a submission about how hard the year was. The regulator is asking one question: does the licence holder fall within serious illness or misadventure? Everything you attach should be directed at that question, and everything that is not should be left out.

That clarity helps you decide early whether you have a request worth making. If you can point to dated documents showing a serious illness or an event beyond your control, you have a case to put. If the only thing you can point to is a heavy programme and a late start, you do not, and the time is better spent earning the points before renewal.

Questions builders ask

• Compliance
• CPD
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Published 6 July 2026. General information for builders, not legal, financial or engineering advice for a specific job. Check current requirements with the relevant regulator or standard before relying on them.