It is terrifying how quickly time flies. Two months ago we wrote about the new cladding regulation. It has now commenced.

Every building in the compliance zone is now on the compliance bus.

That means that unless you actually get off the bus at the first stop (being stage one on 29 March 2019), then you stay on the bus and must ride all the way to stage two. Likewise, if you don’t get off at the second stop (being stage two on 29 May 2019) then you have to go all the way to stage three, which is the fire engineer.

The QBCC will be the conductor (eventually) inspecting tickets, and its inspectors will not be as jovial as Merv Hughes was in this clip for those buildings who don’t do what they have to.

Other than that, we think a few things are worth noting:

• The safer buildings website where buildings that are caught by the regulation has gone live. There is lots of information there for all affected buildings.
• Buildings will register by their real property description. For community titles schemes that is actually lot 0 in their plan number. That is the common property title where all dealings for the body corporate (like the CMS or easements etc) are recorded.
• We think the better view is that the decisions made in stage one are not restricted issues, meaning that the committee can make them. That is not to say they have to – but we think they can. Stage two decisions might involve spending limits, which we wrote about here.
• Given the potential liability that would come with swearing a statutory declaration saying your building is clear of non-conforming cladding when it actually isn’t, we think getting professional advice from a qualified service provider about the status of any cladding on your building would be a no-brainer for stage one.

If you are in an affected building you simply must get started now.