Construction Regulations 2003 - Time to get your

Many commercial property owners seem to be unaware of the content of an obscure but vital clause in the Construction Regulations 2003. These regulations emanate from The Occupational Health and Safety Act No. 85 of 1993, and took 10 years to be gazetted. The regulation concerned may in time have serious negative consequences for the insurance of commercial buildings. The Regulation under Section 9(4) states as follows:

Any owner of a structure shall ensure that inspections of that structure upon completion are carried out periodically by competent persons in order to render the structure safe for continued use: Provided that the inspections are carried out at least once every six months for the first two years and thereafter yearly and records of such inspections are kept and made available to an inspector upon request.

Some large property managers have started paying attention to this Regulation, and in 2010 for example one such property owner commissioned a Gauteng Structural Engineering company to check, in detail, the structure of over eighty commercial buildings in their portfolio. Such action is to be lauded. However it is not yet the norm, and many more owners are still unaware of their obligations.

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