Seymour Consultants prepares strata compliance reports for bodies corporate at Airlie Beach and through the Whitsundays. We are engaged by committees and by strata managers, and inspections are attended from our Gold Coast office.
Much of the local stock is resort style or holiday letting. That changes what a compliance assessment needs to look at, because a building with a constantly changing occupant population is not the same risk as one where everyone lives there year round.
Strata compliance in the Whitsundays
- Work health and safety audits
- Sinking fund forecasts
- Fire safety audits, evacuation plans and evacuation training
- Pool barrier inspection and certification
- Insurance replacement valuations
- Common property condition reports
- Caretaking remuneration reviews
Holiday letting and short stay complexes
Where lots are let short term, the body corporate’s work health and safety duty and its fire safety obligations both get harder to discharge. Guests have not read the evacuation diagram. Pool gates get propped open. Housekeeping and maintenance contractors are on site more often, which brings the contractor management side of the WHS duty into play.
None of that changes the legal obligation. It does change what a useful audit looks like, and it is a reason committees in resort complexes tend to want the evacuation training as well as the plan.
Caretaking agreements
Resort style schemes usually have a caretaking or letting agreement in place, and those agreements come up for review. A remuneration review looks at what the agreement requires, what the caretaker actually does, and what that work is worth at market rates. We produce the report; the committee decides what to do with it.
Cyclone exposure and the sinking fund
The Whitsundays sit in a cyclone region and the local stock has been tested. Roofing, flashings, window and door systems, balustrades and any external shade structures all carry shorter effective lives here than the same elements would inland.
Where a scheme has had repairs following a weather event, we want the records. Work done under an insurance claim frequently resets the clock on part of a building and not the rest, and a forecast that treats the whole roof as the same age will be wrong in both directions at once.
Questions from Whitsundays committees
Our pool gate keeps getting propped open by guests. Is that our problem?
Yes. The body corporate has to maintain the barrier in a compliant state, and a gate that does not self close and self latch is not compliant no matter who propped it. Signage and staff instruction help, but the obligation stays with the scheme.
Do we need evacuation training if we have no staff?
If there is a caretaker, letting agent or housekeeping crew on site, there are people who need to know the plan. Where a complex is genuinely unstaffed the emphasis shifts to signage and the diagram, and we will tell you that rather than sell training you do not need.
The caretaker says their remuneration is below market. How do we test that?
A remuneration review, done independently. It sets out the duties in the agreement, the hours the work reasonably takes, and the market rate for it. Both sides then have a figure that is not simply an assertion.
Booking an inspection
Call 07 5573 4011 or send the scheme details through. Whitsundays visits are grouped with other north Queensland work where possible, so early notice helps.
