Building owners required to respond to the Queensland Government’s new combustible cladding regulations have been forced to remain passengers on the cladding ‘compliance bus’, even if their properties have been cleared of potentially hazardous materials.

The Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) has recently indicated more than 4,300 QLD building owners will now need to complete stage two of the compliance process by the 29 May 2019 deadline. This deadline may have been extended if an application for an extension was submitted by 1 May 2019.

While many building owners have been able to get off the ‘compliance bus’ at stage one if they had no cladding issues, many owners still find themselves going along for the ride to stage two because there may be combustible cladding on signage and other parts of the property.

With the short time frames to comply with stage two, building owners need to work quickly to ensure they comply with the legislation. Stage two compliance involves engaging a licensed building industry professional such as an engineer or architect, registering their details on the Safer Buildings website, having them fill out the combustible cladding checklist and uploading the completed checklist to the Safer Buildings website.

Owners of buildings who know or suspect their building has combustible cladding can skip stage two and complete the stage three process, which involves engaging a fire engineer by 27 August 2019. Owners of buildings wanting to skip stage 2 must indicate as such via the Safer Buildings website prior to 29 May 2019.

In addition to compliance with these new laws, we urge building owners to prioritise fire safety as there is no substitute for complying with fire safety standards, which include ensuring strata communities have evacuation plans in place.

This article was contributed by Andrew Staehr, Partner – Archers the Strata Professionals.