The Occupier's Statement, and what sits behind it

Fire Doors Brisbane — firedoorsbrisbane.com.au — arranges these inspections with a QBCC-licensed contractor across Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, Redlands and the Gold Coast.

Queensland is not New South Wales

Most fire compliance content online is written for Sydney and talks about an Annual Fire Safety Statement. That is the NSW instrument. If you are in Queensland it does not apply to you and searching for it will send you to the wrong obligations.

Queensland's law is the Building Fire Safety Regulation 2008. The yearly document is an Occupier's Statement, Form 74, given to the Commissioner of the Queensland Fire Department.

The duty is on the occupier

This is the part that surprises people. The regulation puts the obligation on the occupier of the building, not the owner. A tenant occupying a whole building can carry it. In common property, it sits with the body corporate.

It is worth establishing who the occupier is before the statement is due, not after. Getting that wrong is the most common reason a building has no records at all — everybody assumed somebody else held the duty.

What has to be true before you sign

The statement says the prescribed fire safety installations have been maintained to the relevant standard. For fire and smoke doors that standard is AS 1851-2012.

So the records have to exist first: each door inspected, each door tagged, defects recorded and dealt with. Records kept at or near the building, retained at least two years, and produced on request.

We arrange the inspection and you get the record. We do not sign your statement and we cannot — that is yours.