Question: Does our body corporate need an annual WHS inspection if there’s no business activity on common property and no employees?
Our small complex of townhouses has no business activities on the common property, and the body corporate has no employees. We believe this means we have no obligation to have an annual Work, Health and Safety inspection.
It has been suggested that if some lot owners work from home or if lots are short-term rented through platforms like Airbnb, an inspection may be necessary. Is this correct, or does the legislation only apply to the common property?
Answer: No body corporate has a direct obligation to obtain an annual WHS inspection, but it may be best practice and, for body corporates that are a PCBU, there may be an indirect obligation.
There are no schemes which have a direct obligation to obtain an annual Work, Health and Safety inspection.
It is often best practice to do so because it can identify risks on the common property that can then be addressed and mitigated. For some schemes, which are a PCBU (usually when a letting agent is engaged), there may be an indirect obligation to obtain such a report to discharge the committee members’ obligations to exercise due diligence in managing the common property.
This post appears in Strata News #795.
Todd Garsden
Mahoneys
E: tgarsden@mahoneys.com.au
P: 07 3007 3753
There is a key understanding about risk management that is often overlooked in this discussion. Before starting a risk assrssment you have to establish the context of the risk. For a strata the realitiy is that in the main, the context does not change, therefore despite a risk assessment being dated if the context has not changed it remains valid. The nuansce has two elements. The first is to assess whether the context has changed. This may mean, has the nature of the occupants changed or more likely has risk tolerance changed. For example, aluminium cladding was fine until Grenfield. This is an example of catacismic change in toletance due tp awareness. The second element is that initial risk assessments are based on the eye of thr beholder. That is, an experienced building engineer will percieve a risk assessment totally differently to a BC member. This comes about due to numerous factors with experience being the primary factor. My advice would be for a strata to have periodic revirews, the time frame between reviews should be based on an assessment of change in context. Secondly, everytime a BC outsources a risk assessment they should use different or alternate providers. This will ensure a different set of eyes on your risk. The final point I would throw in, is thay once a external service provider gives you a risk assessment it is up to the BC to accept and manage. This means you do not have to agree with their assessment but in this case you have to counter their assessment with justification of likelihood an consequence of you own. Equally an external service provider may not percieve a risk that you know exists. In this sitiation it is not appropriate to ignore the risk.