Essential Services For Strata Community
Building Regulations 2006 requires most residential buildings to prepare an annual essential services report. The report covers building items and measures for resident’s safety and protection, including fire extinguishers, exit pathways, and service agreements for inspection.
Site Safety
Notify the manager of any breaches of use of common property
Contractor Safety
For example, in New South Wales for 2008/9, 2,500 workplace injuries were reported each week. There were also tragically 139 work related deaths during that time. Although not officially recorded, many of these injuries and deaths were from engaged contractors.
It is for this reason that it is essential for strata managers and owners corporations to ensure all contractors and employed tradespeople have the correct insurances and licences to operate. If you don’t validate a contractor’s credentials, you expose your business and yourself to enormous risk through being sued by an injured third party or potentially worse - being prosecuted by Work Cover.
For owner’s corporations, there are two options. You can either do the checking yourself or employ a specialist contractor management company to do it on your behalf.
If choosing to do it yourself, this requires time and effort. You also need to ensure you have the in-house knowledge to do it yourself and make sure you keep your knowledge up to date. You also need to be mindful that by doing it yourself you assume the risk and liability if you make an error.
The other option is to engage an expert contractor compliance company to assist you.
They provide a thorough review and evaluation of a contractors ABN, licences and insurances. They provide a protective audit trail that is available if required and they professionally manage a clients risk that is associated with the use of contractors.
The advantage of engaging a specialist company is that you can reduce your risk, save your time, and all at a lower cost than doing this yourself.
For further information please speak to your professional Ace manager or visit www.tradesmonitor.com.au