Seymour Consultants prepares compliance reports for bodies corporate across Brisbane. We are engaged by committees and by the strata managers who act for them, and we have been doing this work since 2001. Inspections are attended from our Gold Coast office.
Brisbane is the largest strata market in south east Queensland and the most varied. An inner city tower, a 1980s brick walk up in the inner north, and a suburban townhouse complex on the outskirts are three different compliance problems wearing the same label.
What Brisbane committees engage us for
Work health and safety audits are the single largest part of our workload. A body corporate is a person conducting a business or undertaking for the purposes of the work health and safety legislation, which surprises a lot of committees. The duty covers contractors on site, plant such as lifts and pumps, and hazards on common property.
We have set out the obligation in plain terms here: what a body corporate actually owes under WHS law.
- Work health and safety audits
- Sinking fund forecasts
- Fire safety audits, evacuation plans and training
- Pool barrier inspection and certification
- Asbestos audits
- Insurance replacement valuations
- Building and engineering reports
- Dilapidation reports where neighbouring construction is a concern
Townhouse complexes and the standard format plan
A lot of Brisbane’s strata stock is townhouses and villas on a standard format plan, where each owner carries the building within their own lot. The body corporate is left with driveways, fencing, retaining walls, shared services and whatever landscaping exists.
Those schemes generally need less in the sinking fund than a building format tower of the same age. Not nothing, though. Retaining walls fail expensively, and a shared driveway is a bigger line item than most committees expect. Getting the plan type right is the first thing our surveyor confirms on site.
Asbestos in older Brisbane schemes
Buildings that went up before 1990 may contain asbestos, and where they do the body corporate needs a register and a management plan. Eaves, fencing, wet area linings and older roof sheeting are the usual places we find it. An audit tells you where it is and what condition it is in, which is what allows the committee to make a decision rather than guess.
Inner city towers
Brisbane’s newer high density stock brings a different set of problems. Podium waterproofing, mechanical ventilation, fire pumps and lift replacement are the large numbers in a forecast, and several of them fall due around the same point in a building’s life. A scheme that has never had a proper forecast can find three major items landing inside five years of each other.
Buildings of that type also carry a heavier fire safety obligation. Occupant warning systems, evacuation diagrams on every level, annual testing records and a current evacuation plan all have to be in place and current, not simply to have existed once.
Questions Brisbane committees ask
Who is responsible for a defect, the owner or the body corporate?
It depends on the plan type and where the defect sits. On a building format plan the body corporate generally carries the structure and the exterior. On a standard format plan the owner carries the building inside their lot. A condition report establishes what the position actually is before anyone starts arguing about it.
Construction is starting next door. Should we do anything?
Get a dilapidation report before it begins. It records the condition of your common property beforehand, which is the only practical way to demonstrate later that a crack was not already there. After the fact it is very difficult to prove.
Is a condition report the same as a dilapidation report?
No, and they are not interchangeable. We have set out the difference here: when to use a condition report instead of a dilapidation report.
How long does a report take?
That depends on the report type and the size of the scheme, so it is quoted per job rather than promised up front. Access on the day is the usual cause of delay.
How to start
Call 07 5573 4011 or get in touch with the address, lot count and plan type. If your strata manager normally raises the work order, they can do that directly.
