If you are a building owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that your building is safe and habitable for everyone and anyone who lives, works or passes through your facility. By obtaining documents like a building warrant of fitness, you can prove that your building is safe and has been adequately inspected for any issues or serious problems.
Any issues in a building, large or small, should be addressed and correctly taken care of in an efficient matter. If they are neglected, ignored or not inspected adequately, minor issues could lead to big ones, leading to disasters and possibly injury.
So, as a New Zealand business owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that your building is annually inspected for any faults or issues.
This document, also abbreviated to BWoF, is an annual statement from a building owner that confirms that the specified systems listed in the compliance schedule in their building have been thoroughly inspected and maintained. By having this official document, you have proof that your building is safe and adequately maintained.
Once you have obtained your official warrant of fitness document, it is paramount that you display it in an area that can be easily seen and read. This is so that anyone who enters the building can be assured that the structure they are in is safe for them to be in.
Additionally, failing to correctly display your building warrant of fitness or displaying a falsified copy of a warrant of fitness can lead to charges and fines. If you do this, you could face fines as large as $20,000. Clearly, letting your BoWF expire and putting it off for too long can lead to costly penalties and dire circumstances.
So, it is essential that you stay on top of your schedule and obtain an updated and legal warrant of fitness in an orderly manner. If you need assistance with your building’s BoWF or with inspections, you can choose to work with professionals who will assist you with every step along the way.
A building warrant of fitness isn’t just to let your building’s inhabitants know that your building is safe; it’s also a legal document that assures everyone that your facility has been inspected. In order to obtain a legal warrant of fitness, your building’s specified systems need to have been checked and cleared.
A building’s specified systems are any system or features in a facility that are vital to the building’s inhabitants’ safety and health. Specified systems are required to be inspected and maintained because, for many of these fixtures, if they break down or have other issues, anyone who uses them could end up seriously injured.
Unfortunately, if someone is injured using one of your building’s specified systems, it can lead to even more issues - including fines and legal trouble. Therefore, as the building owner, it is your responsibility and obligation to ensure that all of your building’s systems are safe to use and maintained correctly.
If your building has any specified systems, you should be issued a compliance schedule unless your building is a single residential building that does not have a cable car. Your compliance schedule will display all of your specified systems, along with their performance standards and what you need to do to ensure they are all working correctly and safely.
Some examples of specified systems that will require you to follow your compliance schedule are:
Automatic Systems For Fire Suppression. For example, automatic sprinklers that set off when a fire is detected.
Automatic Or Manual Emergency Alarm Systems. This can include alarm systems that activate when a fire, or other detectable harmful occurrences, is detected.
Fixtures Meant To Move People Or Objects Within The Building. This category includes escalators, lifts or anything else that is meant to mechanically move people or objects from one section of the building to another.
If any of these specified systems malfunction, it could result in human injury. So, every specified system in your building must be working correctly.
Are you looking for some assistance to help you obtain your next BWoF? Here at Compliance Consultants, we strive to help New Zealand building owners like you properly inspect their buildings to ensure that you are safe, physically and legally.
Because legal documents like warrants of fitness are so important to you and your building’s inhabitants, it is a very wise decision to seek help from professionals like us who know exactly what we are doing. If you would like to speak to our team about your situation, please visit our contact page or simply give us a call at 0800 325 435 to get in touch.
Obtain and display your building warrant of fitness with pride and confidence with help from Compliance Consultants.