Combustible cladding requirements – Have you opted out?!
The first deadline in the Queensland Government’s ‘Safer Buildings’ initiative is looming, with building owners required to complete the registration and checklist for their buildings by Friday, 29 March 2019. Failure to complete the registration means that you will be required to undertake further (potentially very costly) steps and be liable for fines and/or enforcement action, even if your building does not contain any combustible cladding.
The Safer Buildings scheme has been established to help identify buildings in Queensland that may have potentially combustible cladding. The requirements of the scheme generally apply to:
- Owners of all buildings, except detached residential dwellings
- That are two or more storeys high
- That were built (or have had cladding altered) between 1 January 1994 and 1 October 2018
If this applies to you (or you are not sure if it does), then you need to register your building and complete the combustible cladding checklist by 29 March. This checklist must be signed by a qualified witness (eg. a JP, solicitor etc.), so you can’t leave completing the checklist until the last minute!
If there is no combustible cladding within the building, then you can opt out of having to undertake any further steps, simply by completing the registration and checklist by the 29 March deadline. However, if you fail to complete this process, then in addition to risking fines for non-compliance, you will also have to arrange a building industry professional report to provide to the QBCC, regardless of whether or not the building contains combustible cladding – a costly report which could be avoided if you simply complete your registration checklist now!
Don’t assume that because your building does not have a combustible cladding, you do not need to register it. If you don’t register by the deadline, it will be assumed that the building does have combustible cladding for the purposes of having to comply with the next steps.
If you need assistance in understanding the scheme, including the further steps which the scheme imposes on buildings that are found to have combustible cladding, contact the expert Building & Construction and Property lawyers at Enterprise Legal today!