FAQs for apartment and building owners
Apartment and building owners may need to register buildings with combustible cladding with NSW Government. Read frequently asked questions about registration.
FAQs
Registrations on the Department of Planning and Environment’s (DPE) Cladding Register are not updated and records are not removed. The DPE register is only used for lodgement of ‘point-in-time’ information regarding buildings. This information is made available to Fire and Rescue NSW and local councils to allow them to assess and prepare for any cladding risks.
For buildings assessed as potentially high risk, the NSW Cladding Taskforce keeps track of their status, including whether they have been cleared, using information provided by local councils and other consent authorities.
For buildings not considered potentially high risk, councils maintain and update any records they keep.
Since the status of all buildings is vetted by consent authorities, you should advise your council if there are any changes to your building. Also, if you have obtained independent advice about the nature of the cladding it is advisable to provide your council with a copy of this advice.
It is not the Government’s intention to make information collected on the portal public. Information about registered buildings will be made available to councils and certain State Government agencies. It is important to note that the list is not a list of high-risk buildings but rather buildings that may require further investigation by local authorities.
The information was provided to the NSW Government Cladding Taskforce under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Identification of Buildings with External Combustible Cladding) Regulation 2018.
The information is part of the Taskforce’s ongoing work on identifying buildings that may have combustible cladding which included Fire & Rescue NSW (FRNSW) visiting and inspecting over 2,000 sites prior to the introduction of the Cladding Regulation. Work is ongoing with local councils and, where relevant, specific State Government agencies, to determine what action, if any, is necessary regarding any identified buildings.
It is also important to remember that the presence of combustible cladding on a building does not mean it is a fire safety risk. Fire safety risks depend on the amount of combustible cladding and its configuration, as well as the fire safety provisions within the building.
As a prospective property buyer you have rights to information about a property. This information may include details of whether the property has external combustible cladding or whether an assessment report has been commissioned to determine the nature of the building’s cladding. Different sources of information include:
Asking the strata managing agent and real estate agent about the history of the building and the outcomes of any assessments of the building
Meeting minutes of the strata committee and owners’ corporation and other records kept by the owners’ corporation. This can be done by paying the prescribed fee to inspect the strata records so that you can ascertain whether any investigations or compliance action has been initiated and how they were resolved.
Asking the council whether there are any outstanding compliance or fire safety orders relating to the building. This can include requesting a certificate of outstanding notices. The council is required to issue such a certificate which will include any action proposed to be taken by the council in relation to any outstanding notices and orders issued by council in relation to the property.
Commissioning your own building inspection report.
For additional advice, see:
Yes, you still need to register.
The Regulation applies to residential apartment buildings, other types of residential buildings where people sleep and public buildings, all of two storeys or higher, with external combustible cladding. However, a building could contain more than one use including some that are not covered by the Regulation.
For example, a building could contain different parts such as residential units (Class 2), a hotel (Class 3), shops/cafes at ground level (Class 6) and a basement carpark (Class 7). Similarly, a building such as a shopping centre could have shops (Class 6), offices (Class 5), a gym (Class 9b) and a childcare centre (Class 9b).
Where a building with external combustible cladding is made up of different uses and contains a Class 2, 3 or 9 use, then the owner must register the building no matter how small or how far away from the cladding the Class 2, 3 or 9 part is located.
If you are unsure about the class, or would like further information about your building, please contact your local council.
Yes.
A separate online form needs to be completed for each building. However, the following features will make it easy for you to register more than one building:
You can register all the buildings using one log-in account.
You can add another building by selecting ‘Register your building’ from your dashboard page.
You can save each draft form and submit each finalised form at different times, although a form will be cancelled within 30 days of its creation if it hasn’t been submitted.
You can log back into the system to check which buildings you have registered and send this information to the relevant owners’ corporation.
The tragic fire at the Greenfell Tower in London in 2017 and the Lacrosse Building fire in Melbourne in 2014 have highlighted public safety risks posed by inappropriate use of certain combustible products on the external areas of buildings.
To address the problem, the NSW Government developed a 10-point action plan that included the creation of a Cladding Taskforce, led by the Department of Finance, Services and Innovation, and including Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) and the Department of Planning and Environment.
A priority of the Taskforce is the identification of buildings with combustible cladding to ensure affected buildings are safe. This is being undertaken in collaboration with building owners and occupants, industry and councils.
As a Taskforce member, FRNSW has visited and inspected over 2,000 sites identified by local councils, visual observations by FRNSW officers, and an analysis of development approvals by the Department of Planning and Environment.
Another initiative under the 10-point plan is the implementation of a new law in the form of an amendment to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2000 (the Cladding Regulation). The new regulation introduces a requirement for owners of certain residential and public buildings to register their building on a NSW Government portal. For registration purposes, owners don’t have to be certain about the level of combustibility of the cladding on their building.
The identification of these buildings will enable FRNSW to educate the occupants about fire prevention, and to respond appropriately in the event of a fire. Registration also assists councils in their role as building control authorities to determine what further actions (if any) are necessary.
It is important to note that the presence of external combustible cladding on a building does not necessarily mean it is a fire hazard.
In addition, a product use ban on certain types of combustible cladding was recently issued by the Commissioner for Fair Trading. The product use ban is primarily aimed at preventing the use of specific cladding products on buildings in the future. More information regarding the Building Products (Safety) Act 2017 and the product use ban is available from the NSW Fair Trading website.
If you own one of the following types of buildings, two storeys or higher, that has external combustible cladding,
the new regulation applies to your building:
- Residential apartment buildings.
- Other types of residential buildings where people sleep, for example, hotels, boarding houses, backpackers, student accommodation.
- Aged-care buildings, hospitals, day surgeries and public assembly buildings, such as theatres, cinemas, schools and churches. The regulation also applies to a single dwelling within one of these buildings, for example, a caretaker’s residence inside an aged-care facility or school.
This regulation does not currently apply to offices, shops, warehouses, carparks, factories and other commercial buildings although they may be included at a later stage. The regulation also does not apply to houses.
The new regulation applies to buildings that have the following types of external combustible cladding on any external walls or other external areas of the building:
- Metal composite panels including products that use aluminium, zinc or copper outer layers and a core material, or
- Insulated cladding systems including systems comprised of polystyrene, polyurethane and polyisocyanurate.
If you are an owner of one of the above types of buildings with the relevant type of cladding you must register the building on the NSW Government portal between 22 October 2018 and 22 February 2019.
The new regulation also applies to buildings even if they have:
- a development consent
- a complying development certificate
- a construction certificate
- an occupation certificate
- an annual fire safety statement
- a cladding assessment
- a fire safety order
- a letter from the NSW Cladding Taskforce about the building
- notification of a product use ban issued by the Commissioner of Fair Trading.
It also applies to government authorities who own buildings within the scope of the regulation.
The cladding regulation requires you to register your existing building on a NSW Government portal between 22 October 2018 and 22 February 2019. For new buildings (those that have not yet been occupied when the regulation commences), the deadline for registration will be four months after the building is first occupied.
- Note that emailed registrations are not permitted and will not be processed.
- Only owners or their nominated representatives can register their buildings.
- Owners in apartment buildings should decide who will register at an owners' corporation meeting.
- Only one registration per building is allowed
- Strata managers may be able to register for you, depending on your agreement with them.
You don’t have to engage an expert to register the building. The portal will take you through a simple registration process.
You will need to provide basic information such as:
- the type of external combustible cladding (metal composite panels or insulated cladding system)
- the address of the building
- name and address of the owner/owners’ corporation representative
- the building use (for example: residential, school, hospital)
- number of storeys
- the approximate percentage of cladding
- the parts of the building to which cladding is applied.
While every effort should be made to be accurate during the registration process, this information can be corrected later, if necessary. If you are unsure about the cladding it is better to register the building.
Failure to register may incur fines of $1500 for individuals and $3000 for corporations.
The ban and the regulation are complementary. The Department of Finance, Services and Innovation and the Department of Planning and Environment have worked collaboratively to develop these reforms. The purpose of the cladding regulation is to identify new and existing buildings that may contain a range of combustible cladding products that could be a fire safety risk, and which may need further assessment.
The product use ban is primarily aimed at preventing the use of specific cladding products on buildings in the future. More information about the Building Products (Safety) Act 2017 and the product use ban is available from the NSW Fair Trading website.
No. Building owners must still register their buildings even if it is subject to a fire safety order.
Only building owners or their representatives can register a building. If tenants are concerned about whether their building has combustible cladding, or their building owner’s response to these requirements, they should seek further information from their landlord or managing agent.
The details of the building will be provided to FRNSW and the local council. It is possible that your council or FRNSW may contact you about your building after you register.
Resources
- Supplementary FAQs for apartment and building owners (PDF 515.97KB)
- FAQs for apartment and building owners - English (PDF 1.15MB)
- FAQs for apartment and building owners - Arabic (PDF 999.82KB)
- FAQs for apartment and building owners - Chinese (PDF 1002.26KB)
- FAQs for apartment and building owners - Hindi (PDF 902.36KB)
- FAQs for apartment and building owners - Korean (PDF 991.22KB)
- FAQs for apartment and building owners - Turkish (PDF 883.81KB)
- FAQs for apartment and building owners - Vietnamese (PDF 997.53KB)
Related information
Contact us
If you require support, and you were unable to find the answer within the Frequently asked questions, contact Service NSW for assistance.
- Phone: 1300 305 695
- Email: info@service.nsw.gov.au
The customer service centre is open Monday to Friday: 9:00am - 5:00pm.