Property Maintenance Check During COVID-19: How Do We Inspect Safely ?

If you’re a property owner, having a property maintenance check is very important. Not only do routine maintenance and repairs help your property look good, but any structural improvements can help increase property value and rentability in the future in any case.

So, should you get a property maintenance check during the COVID-19 pandemic? We believe you should.

Why Do a Property Maintenance Check During COVID-19?

1. Meet Compliance and Legislative Requirements 

First of all, all the works need to meet various compliance and legislative requirements, such as fire safety should continue normally.

2. Prevent Long-Term Larger Problems

However, avoiding short-term problems from happening like a burst pipe or blocked drain should be done to prevent suffering from long-term larger problems, which can be costlier and harder to fix. We recommend you fix these initial problems immediately. 

Major problems require owners corporation or a strata committee meeting to decide on the necessary action to approve the cost. These significant repairs may fall under the strata scheme’s 10-year plan for the capital works fund too.

3. Good Time to Do Repairs

With more people self-isolating or working from home, it’s becoming even more essential to increase property maintenance check and cleanliness services, including garbage disposal, disinfecting, and cleaning common areas such as bin lids, lift buttons, and door handles to keep residents and property owners safe from the virus. With more people at home, this also signals a good time to do repairs underway, making it easier for plumbers or painters to carry out essential work.

4. Keep Essential Workers in Jobs

Doing a property maintenance check also helps keep essential workers in jobs, including building inspectors, painters, plumbers, electricians, garbage collectors, and gardeners. However, it’s important to ensure that all maintenance works follow the necessary COVID-19 protocols.

Strata Community Association Urges Property Maintenance Check

Andrew Chambers, the President of Strata Community Association (SCA), has also urged strata property owners not to cancel maintenance jobs. He further stated that if the strata communities cancel planned work or ongoing maintenance, they affect the workflow of strata ecosystems and cause long-term effects on the building and amenities, and will cost more money in the long run.

Chambers also added the importance of the strata property manager and management services. He saw the role of the manager as important for maintaining social cohesion, security, and safety for residents and ensuring schemes can adapt to the challenges that may arise at those in isolation.

How Can Property Maintenance Check Keep Your Building in Condition?

1. Routine Maintenance and Repairs

Under the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, the property owners are responsible for having a property maintenance check and keep its aesthetic appeal. You can consider giving your walls a fresh coat of paint, re-tile, re-carpet, or lobby areas to make a pleasing entrance.

2. Structural Improvements

Having a property maintenance check also includes improving the property’s functionality. If you’re considering having it rented in the future, doing this will increase its value and attract new occupants. You can also consider landscaping the common garden areas, renovating stairways and balconies, a communal herb garden, or add security cameras to increase safety.

3. Speak to your strata manager 

To understand the improvements that can be made or to find the best companies for property maintenance checks, we recommend you to speak with our professional building consultant and inspector to give you advice.

Safety Property Maintenance Check Protocols of EBC Inspectors During COVID-19

After several weeks of discussions since COVID-19 affected Australia, Effective Building & Consultancy resumed property maintenance checks, residential and commercial buildings with modifications in line with government advice regarding social distancing. Our scheduling team will continue to contact our clients to arrange inspection times.

We take the health and safety of building residents and the broader public very seriously. Our key objective is ensuring public and community safety, and our building inspections are a significant component of that objective.

For buyers, residents, and owners of buildings scheduled for inspection soon, we appreciate your cooperation in allowing us to visit and inspect your homes and buildings to assess the structure of buildings across the state.

We acknowledge that in response to the risks posed by a coronavirus (COVID-19), we have all had to make major changes to our lives; most critically, our movements regarding social distancing recommendations from the government. At EBC, we, too, have had to fundamentally change the way we undertake our work to minimise risks to residents, our inspectors, and other staff.

These changes include:

Wearing Appropriate Safety Protections

Inspectors will be wearing appropriate safety protections, including masks, safety glasses, and gloves to inspections, and have been briefed on limiting cross-contamination between locations.

Following Physical Distancing

Inspectors will be strictly following government directives concerning physical distancing, including staying more than 1.5m away from other people and allowing only one inspector into sole-occupancy units at a time where possible.

Monitoring the Department of Health and Human Services

EBC will continue to closely monitor the Department of Health and Human Services advice on when our inspectors should stay home from work and when they need to self-isolate, and not allow inspectors showing any symptoms to continue to work in the field.

Devising Faster Inspection Methods

The entire EBC team has devised faster inspection methods that don’t compromise the assessment quality to reduce the amount of time spent on properties.

For more information about property maintenance checks, visit our Help Centre.