Building Inspections and Combustible Cladding
The Queensland Government recently amended the Building Regulation 2006 bringing in new safety laws in Queensland. From 1 October 2018 Building Owners are required to register their buildings and complete the combustible cladding checklist.
The use of combustible cladding on buildings is a safety concern for Queenslanders.
Safer Buildings has been established to help identify buildings in Queensland that may have potentially combustible cladding.
An estimated 12,000 Queensland buildings are captured by new cladding laws which require building owners to report to the QBCC about the material on the exterior of their building.
The Building and Other Legislation (Cladding) Amendment Regulation (2018) came into effect on 1 October 2018 meaning that, by law, some building owners must complete the online Safer Buildings combustible cladding checklist to assess their building’s safety.
What do you Need to Know and Do?
About a quarter of the 14,300 private high-rise buildings singled out for cladding assessment in Queensland will undergo a physical inspection by a building professional in the second round of the state’s audit process that begins next week.
The Queensland Building and Construction Commission advised that 24 per cent of the 14,336 building assessments registered, which require owners to answer questions about their building, would need further scrutiny.
The March 29 deadline required the building owners to complete a first-stage, four-question self-assessment, the actual number of buildings requiring an inspection that building owners will pay for is not yet clear.
A “building assessment” does not necessarily equate to one building, as one assessment may cover a site with multiple buildings and any given building could be subject to more than one assessment.
Owners not complying with the deadline would be liable for penalties of up to $2611. Information on the Audit process and the Checklist is here http://www.qbcc.qld.gov.au/blog/industry-today/have-you-been-identified-safer-buildings-checklist
The QBCC is a Point of Reference
While the presence of combustible cladding devalues apartments and saddles owners’ corporations with rectification bills many cannot afford, one hurdle in building up a picture of the extent of the combustible cladding crisis has been that each state and territory is carrying out its own audit process.
Queensland buildings going to the second stage will have just eight weeks to engage a professional to inspect the building and confirm whether it is the type of building needing scrutiny and whether it has cladding that could be of concern to the regulator.
Buildings going to the third stage will have to engage a fire engineer and register their details on the state’s combustible cladding checklist.
Those buildings will then have until 3 May 2021 to submit a detailed report outlining the extent of any combustible cladding and making recommendations for rectification.
