Stage 2 of the Strata Building Bond and Inspections Scheme calls for the developer to appoint a building inspector within 12 months of the issue of an Occupation Certificate (OC). The OC allows people to occupy the building and deems the project practically complete.
The building inspector must be on an approved strata inspection panel. Those quantity surveyors on the panel, like ourselves, can be found via the Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors website: https://www.aiqs.com.au/aiqs-strata-defects-inspection-panels-new-south-wales
Once the developer chooses an inspector, they then email the owners corporation with information about the appointed inspector. The owners corporation must provide notice of acceptance within 14 days.
The Secretary may become involved if the following occurs:
1. If the developer fails to appoint an inspector, the Secretary will appoint one at the developer’s expense.
2. If the owners corporation reject the selected inspector, then the developer repeats the process until an inspector is agreed upon (within the 12 months).
3. If the owners corporation and developer can’t agree on an inspector in time, the Secretary will appoint one.
The Secretary is either the Commissioner for Fair Trading or the Secretary of the Department of Customer Service.
This should be a straight forward process and it is in the best interest of the developer that they choose a competent inspector as the inspector will play a big part in the rest of the process until the release of the building bond. The entire process from Occupation Certificate usually takes 2 to 3 years. This will be explained in upcoming blog posts about the next steps.