Should you be worried if you have flammable cladding on your building? The simple answer is yes, of course – but perhaps not for the obvious reasons.
While the dangers of a rapidly spreading fire are obvious, in a modern building with properly maintained smoke alarms and sprinklers, the most immediate threat to most affected strata communities is being compelled to undertake costly remediation work at their own considerable expense.
Regardless of who installed the cladding and under what circumstances, the buck stops with the apartment owners, collectively – the Owners Corporation being the only body that is required by law to fix common property irrespective of the circumstances.
That’s why I’ll be hosting an Owners Corporation Network event called “Don’t Get Burnt by Flammable Cladding” on March 16.
This seminar will see a unique list of experts help apartment owners, strata committees and owners corporations to navigate their way through the current maze of liabilities, risks and commitments.
Phillip Gall, Chairman of the Owners Corporation Network will cover how the OCN can help, including the benefits of working together, working with Government and joining OCN’s flammable cladding action group.
Peter Carter, Associate Director of Core Project Consulting will discuss the technical aspects of cladding compliance including reporting requirements, mitigation of costs, practical aspects of remediation works and options available to owners.
Peter has more than 20 years of experience with facade design, manufacture, installation, certification and remediation throughout the Asia Pacific and Middle East.
Paul Morton, CEO of Lannock Strata Finance, will discuss finance options available to owners needing to fund remediation work for cladding. Paul is regarded as the expert when it comes to the economics and efficient financing of strata schemes.
Lannock Strata Finance provides funding directly to the owners corporation or body corporate for repairs, renovations, refurbishments, building defects, fire safety, professional services, insurance and re-development.
Julian Schimmel, Principal Lawyer, Maurice Blackburn Lawyers will discuss legal options, with a specific focus on the class action procedure as a means for owners to recover the costs of work to remediate cladding.
With more than 11 years’ experience in complex class action litigation, Julian has acted in a wide range of group claims with particular expertise in product liability claims. Julian recently concluded two class actions in the Federal Court of Australia in relation to medical devices, one of which led to a landmark $250 million settlement, and he is now conducting a consumer class action against Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda arising from the international “dieselgate” emissions issue.
And then there’s me, Jimmy Thomson, I’ll keeping things rolling along and making sure Flatchatters have a voice. If you have any questions you want raised, email us at mail@flatchat.com.au with the word “Cladding” in the subject line or post a question on the Flat Chat Forum.
See you on Saturday 16th. Click here for more information and to register.
A gentleman who knew what he was talking about on Melb, radio after Neo fire, suggested that to save some money for owners, was to change every second floor cladding to avoid it spreading up/down the building.. This sounds good to me. What say you..
We’ve just been burned by flammable cladding.
Our scheme is a 60yo red brick 3 story 12 units building. i.e. no cladding. Our strata managers send us out a email yesterday with a report attached and a bill for $600+ dollars and a side comment telling us “as mentioned in January” we’ve gone and done this report…
The email with the notice that they were going to do it came in an apparent “Marketing” email that no one actually received.
Now if they do this for every scheme in their portfolio they’ve raked in potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.