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My owner’s corporation has recently arranged fire systems testing (NSW). 100% of apartments in the building were checked and an application was submitted to the local council (which cannot be done unless there has been compliance with all requirements).My property agent is now telling me that this is not sufficient and I need to arrange a second private fire inspection (as the strata requirements and residential tenancy act requirements are different). I have had a look at the Fair Trading website but this doesn’t really clarify the issue. Can anyone help?
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The rental agent should be able to check whether or not there are smoke alarms in place. They may not be able to check if they are working but surely this would have been done as part of a comprehensive fire safety check of all the apartments.
I know that once a year a fire safety inspector comes to our flat and triggers the alarms with a spray. Contact your strata manager and ask if that would have been part of the fire safety check in your block. If so, tell your agent to make sure the smoke alarms are in place the next time he insects the property. I think that should be all you need to do.
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Compliance with fire orders is an Owners’ Corp responsibility not an individual owner’s responsibility. This is followed up most often by the OC installing fire or more correctly, “smoke” detectors in each flat. One detector per floor. So a one level flat would have one detector. A flat of the same size but on 2 floors (levels) require 2 detectors. If installed by the OC, these are connected to a common “fire board” located in say the garage, store room or meter room.
The very fact that such a fire board (to which the many flats’ alarms are connected) exists is proof of OC responsibility to install and maintain (and that includes annual testing).
If a “fire board” does not exist then it would seem that the OC decided that each owner would install his/her own smoke detector and with that often comes the individual owner’s responsibility for annual testing. Of course the OC could complicate matters by deciding to itself arrange for annual inspections those detectors installed by individuals.
Note: “fire board” is an electronic board that reveals if the various detectors are working fine or if there is a fault with one or more. It also identifies where the fault is located.