BCA compliance audits and Building Information Certificates
Whether you are buying, leasing, or changing how a building is used, we give you a clear picture of its compliance status before you commit.
What a compliance audit covers
A comprehensive assessment of an existing commercial or industrial building, including tenant fit-outs and changes of use, confirming its current compliance status against the Building Code of Australia.
The report identifies clearly which areas require regulatory upgrade. That is the point of it: not a pass or fail, but a specific list of what is non-compliant, what it would take to fix, and what you are therefore taking on.
Our Services
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Due diligence before a purchase. The building's compliance status transfers to you along with the building. An audit before settlement tells you what you are buying rather than what you are being told you are buying.
Leasing. Both sides benefit from knowing the condition of what is being leased, particularly where a fit-out or a change of use is planned.
Insurance. Insurers increasingly ask for evidence of compliance, and a building that cannot demonstrate it may not be covered the way the owner assumes.
Change of use. A building compliant as one class is not automatically compliant as another. Turning a warehouse into a gym, or offices into apartments, changes which parts of the Code apply.
A Building Information Certificate application. Council will usually require a compliance audit as part of the application, which is where most of this work originates.
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A Building Information Certificate is issued by Council. It confirms that, for a set period, Council will not take action requiring the building to be repaired, demolished or altered.
People generally need one in two situations. The first is buying a property where work has been done without approval, and the certificate is what makes the transaction safe to complete. The second is regularising something already built without approval, where the alternative is the risk of an order to remove it.
In both cases the application rests on evidence about the building's actual condition against the Code. That evidence is the compliance audit, and it is work we do.
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Fire safety measures are where existing buildings most often fall short, because requirements have moved on since the building was approved and nobody has revisited them.
We prepare fire safety schedules, advise on essential fire safety measures, and provide fire safety upgrade advice where a building needs to be brought up to standard.
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This specific, often complex reporting requirement involves assessing and reporting on an existing building's fire engineering reports. Our expertise enables us to provide a thorough report that also complies with legislation.
It sits here rather than with the approvals work because it concerns a building that already exists, and it usually arrives alongside the other fire safety questions on this page.
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A written report against the Building Code covering the building as it stands, with non-compliances identified specifically rather than generally, so it can be acted on by your architect, your builder or your solicitor without further interpretation.
Where the work sits inside a Building Information Certificate application, the report is prepared with that application in mind, because a report written for a different purpose usually has to be redone.
Tell us about the building and what you are trying to do with it, and you will get an answer from the person who would carry out the audit.