As a Registered Architect, if you wish, you are entitled to put your registration on hold, known as "
voluntary suspension". This can be done simply by contacting the NZRAB at info@nzrab.org.nz or ringing 04 471 1336. There is no fee for this procedure.
Architects sometimes do this when they are working overseas, raising a family or studying. It may also be the right approach for an architect who has been made redundant or cannot work for health reasons.
Being in voluntary suspension means:
- you cannot practice using the titles "architect" or "Registered Architect"
- you will not be sent invoices for annual Certificates of Registration
- you can still log on as an architect
- you can still do and record CPD
- your
name is still visible on the online New Zealand Architects Register,
where it is recorded that you are in "Voluntary Suspension".
Voluntary suspension can be for a minimum of 12 months or a maximum of 5 years. However, if you are in voluntary suspension you can start practising again at any time. All that's required is that you contact the NZRAB and pay for a current Annual Certificate of Registration. Once that is done, your full registration is reactivated immediately and the Register will show this. You can then start practising.
There is, however, one exception to this. If the period for which you take voluntary suspension ends more than five years after you were either first registered or last had a competence review, then you will have to have another competence review before you can start practicing again. So in terms of the requirements for continued registration, when you are voluntary suspension the clock does not stop.
Architects in voluntary suspension are entitled to do and record CPD.
This is not compulsory, but it is a good idea to help keep you in touch
with the profession. Also, it will help in terms of meeting the requirements for continuing registration, whenever your next competence review is due.
Voluntary suspension (ex-AERB)
Where the
New Zealand Architects Register identifies architects as being in "Voluntary Suspension (ex-AERB)", this means that these architects elected to go into voluntary suspension without first getting registered with the NZRAB when the previous Architects Education Registration Board (AERB) was wound up.
To activate their registration again, these architects first need to register with the NZRAB, which they can do under registration pathway 7
here, which is a simplified, less expensive registration procedure specifically for former New Zealand architects.
The voluntary suspension that these architects have expires on
31 March
2012. This is because the maximum duration permitted for
voluntary suspension is five years and the last annual practicising certificates from the AERB expired on 31 March 2007.
As a result, unless in the interem these architects have registered with the NZRAB, on 1 April 2012 their registration will be archived in the NZRAB data base.
As a result, on or about 1 April 2012 the names of these architects will be moved from the online New Zealand Architects Register to
the NZRAB's online listing of former architects here
.
This may matter for some architects working overseas on the basis that they are registered in New Zealand.