Minor works: what an owner can do without an Authorised Person
The Minor Works Control System exists so routine work does not need a full submission. It is not a shortcut around approval — it is a lighter route with its own rules, and using it wrongly creates unauthorised works.
Most building work in Hong Kong needs the approval of plans and the consent of the Buildings Department before it starts, carried out under an Authorised Person. The Minor Works Control System is the exception, and it is widely misunderstood.
What it is for
It provides a simplified route for smaller, common works — the kind a building needs routinely. Instead of a full submission, the work is carried out by a registered contractor and, depending on its class, under a prescribed building professional, with notification to the Buildings Department rather than prior approval.
The point is proportionality. Replacing a canopy should not require the same process as adding a floor.
What it is not
It is not permission to skip the system. Works fall inside it only if they match a description in the schedule, and only if the right class of contractor and, where required, the right professional are engaged and the right notification is given.
Work that resembles minor works but does not actually qualify — because of its scale, its position, or its effect on structure — is simply unauthorised building works, whatever the contractor said at the time.
Where owners go wrong
Three patterns recur. A contractor describes a job as minor works without checking which class it falls into. A sequence of individually small jobs adds up to something that is not minor at all. Or the work is genuinely minor but the notification is never filed, so nothing in the record shows it was done properly.
The last one matters more than owners expect: an unrecorded compliant job and an unauthorised one look identical during a sale or an MBIS inspection.
The practical test
Before instructing, establish which class the work falls into, who is required to supervise it, and what has to be filed. If a contractor cannot answer those three questions in writing, that is the answer.
Opulence Management advises owners and Owners' Corporations on classification and supervision as part of building surveying, including work already carried out where the position is unclear.
