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[RL]

Hi all,

I’m in a Class 2 building in Sydney, built around 1980.  Recently we changed strata managers, and had our first AGM with new manager.  Item 1, he said, was to get an annual fire safety inspection and issue an annual fire safety statement to council.  We have never done this before, and none of us had ever heard of such a statement; he said we had been breaking the law for decades. I decided to look into the legislation to see if he is right (after all, no stakeholder appears to have noticed in the last 36 years).

First let me say up front, that I take fire safety seriously. I don’t want to put my life or others’ lives at risk, or have an unsafe building. Nevertheless, I’m specifically asking about what the law actually requires.

The relevant legislation appears to be the ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING AND ASSESSMENT REGULATION 2000: https://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_reg/epaar2000480/index.html#s164a

Reg. 177(1): “Each year, the owner of a building to which an essential fire safety measure is applicable must cause the council to be given an annual fire safety statement for the building”.  So, is an essential fire safety measure applicable?  It is defined in Reg. 165 as a fire safety measure that is identified in either a fire safety schedule, or in approvals or orders issued before 1997.

fire safety schedule is defined in Reg. 168. It seems a fire safety schedule is issued to us by an authority (typically a council) either when we approach them for one of the purposes given in (a-c), which we have never done; or when they issue a fire safety order as in (d), presumably because we came to their attention for some other reason, which has also not happened.

So, since no relevant authority has, to our knowledge, issued a “fire safety schedule” under Reg. 168, there can be no “fire safety measure” in such a schedule, nor is there any record of an approval or order issued before 1997, which means no “essential fire safety measure”, which means we would not be required to submit an annual fire safety certificate under Reg. 177, until such time as we either submit a DA or receive an order from council.  Is that correct?

Thanks in advance,

RL.

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