Defective Buildings & the Cladding Crisis

Defective Buildings & The Cladding Crisis
2 Formal CPD Points

The cladding crisis continues to affect thousands of owners of strata apartments across Australia. States are dealing with this in different ways. Victoria has implemented a funded scheme that is designed to assist strata corporations to make their cladding safe, but progress in states other than Victoria has been slow.
 
The ‘Project Remediate’ scheme in NSW provides interest free loans to Strata Councils but responsibility for implementing the scheme has been transferred to the authorities that approved the buildings in the first case, mainly local councils.
 
The Federal government has said this is a problem for the states, even though defects in the National Construction Code (NCC), which is coordinated by the Federal Government, caused the problem in the first place.
 
Unlike the UK, which has introduced rules requiring ‘waking watches’ in affected buildings, there has been little intervention in relation to ACP clad residential buildings in Australia, despite the strong evidence that a cladding fire can develop extremely rapidly.
 

This webinar brings together a group of engineering, legal and design experts who will:

• Compare the structure of the schemes in place across Australia

• ·Advise on the technical challenges of meeting the competing requirements of appearance, safety, durability, and compliance.

• Consider the regulatory pitfalls that have crept to the surface as “new and better” regulations come into force

• Suggest strategies for those serving on Owners corporations and their advisors

• Provide firsthand feedback on some of the surprises discovered behind the cladding once it is removed.

• Advise on the status of insurance claims and liability issues for architects, builders, and construction professionals.

• Provide an update on the NSW Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020. Look at how the new provisions are working in practice since their implementation from 1 July 2021 and looking specifically at the remedial industry, what is the impact of the new obligations on remedial practitioners performing remedial works on strata buildings.