Laws relating to combustible cladding have commenced in QLD

New Legislation

As was foreshadowed in our previous newsletter, the new regulation, namely Building and Other Legislation (Cladding) Amendment Regulation 2018  is now law. It commenced on 1 October 2019.

Just to reiterate, if your building:

Just to reiterate, your building falls under the new regulation if your building:

• was built, or has had cladding altered after 1 January 1994 but before 1 October 2018
• is any of classes 2 to 9 (which covers basically everything residential and commercial other than houses or townhouses); and
• had a building development approval issued after 1 January 1994 but before 1 October 2018 to build the building or alter the cladding; and
• is of Type A or Type B construction (essentially buildings of three storeys or higher)

Those buildings will need to comply with the process. This is the case even if you are 100% certain that there is no cladding on your building.

What Capitol is doing

Capitol has commenced communicating with those schemes that we manage, which we think will need to comply with the legislation.

Capitol has sourced two contractors who have fire engineers who will be able to assist the body corporate with the registration process. If the body corporate wishes to avail itself of that assistance, then Capitol will circulate the necessary committee voting paper to the members of the committee.

What needs to be done

QBCC has commenced writing to bodies corporate who the QBCC believes need to register. If your body corporate receives a letter from QBCC – please email a copy to us. Note that the communication apparently does not identify your building by name or by street address. The only identifying feature is a unique number that has been generated by the government system.

If your building is one of those that must comply with the legislation, then you have until 29 March 2019 to complete the required process.

If your body corporate does not require assistance and it is intended that your body corporate will deal with the matter then someone on the committee will need to establish a personal QGOV account, unless a member of the committee already has one. Then the body corporate will need to register and complete an online checklist via the QBCC that will run you through whether the building is likely to be one of those with non-conforming cladding.

If you don’t complete registration, there is a penalty units/fines regime that can be applied.

If there is no issue, then all is well and you just need to keep that certification. If not, you are onto stage two.