When it comes to managing your building’s cladding – exactly what are you responsible for under the new legislation?

Under the new Building and Other Legislation (cladding) Amendment 2018 (an amendment to Building Regulation 2006), the owners of certain types of private buildings in Queensland are now responsible for the combustible cladding assessment of their building façade.

The affected buildings are private buildings that meet the following criteria:

• Development approval granted after 1 January 1994 and before 1 October 2018, and
• Class 2 to 9 building classifications, as defined in the Building Code of Australia, and
• Type A or B construction, as defined in the Building Code of Australia.

To undertake your review, you will need to complete the online building cladding checklist at the Safer Buildings website published by the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC).

Although the deadline to complete the combustible cladding checklist without penalty has now passed, all Queensland building owners still have an obligation to complete the checklist under Queensland legislation. All checklists should be submitted as soon as possible. Note that delays or a failure to complete the checklist and the associated obligations may attract penalties including fines up to $22,019.25.

There are three parts to the online checklist, and each contains a series of questions relating to the building being assessed.

• Building owners were required to complete Part 1 (which related to the general building specifics). The system then determines, based on the responses to the questions, if a building met the above listed criteria for cladding assessment.
• If it was determined that the building needed to proceed to Part 2 of the process, the building owner must then engage a Building Industry Professional (BIP) to help complete this.

During Part 1 or Part 2 of the process, if it’s deemed by the online system that the building does not need to progress further, the building will be exited from the process. The building owner will be required to submit a signed declaration online to complete the process.

• If a building is required to proceed to Part 3 for a fire engineering assessment, the building owner must engage a qualified fire engineer and provide QBCC the engineer’s details. A Building Fire Safety Risk Assessment report must then be completed by the fire engineer.

Our fire safety engineering team comprises of chartered RPEQ registered engineers who specialise in fire safety building solutions and have a deep understanding of the assessment methodologies associated with combustible cladding.

They are experienced in fire risk approach for addressing vertical fire spread via building façades.

Koroush Keshavarz has also completed the cladding fire safety specialist course, ‘External Fire Spread Risk in Tall Building Design’ with the University of Queensland.

Arthur Ting has extensive knowledge of building regulations and risk assessments to prepare building fire safety risk assessments.

In December 2018 we hosted an event on Queensland’s Safe Cladding legislation with guest speaker Philip Halton (Deputy Commissioner, QBCC) and panelists Sarah Hausler, Patrick Beckett, Mark Anderson and Koroush Keshavarz. Click on the image below to view a recording of the event:

Further information on the Queensland combustible cladding review process is available at:

The Safer Buildings Website

Safer Buildings combustible cladding checklist ticks over to Part 2.

Do you need to complete the Safer Buildings combustible cladding checklist?