QLD Smoke alarms legislation in QLD

Hi guys, I have received an email from my PM about smoke alarm upgrade in my investment properties in QLD. Have you received this email as well and did you upgrade too? What I see is the number of alarms are going to increase by a lot.

 

Unfortunately if you own a rental property in Queensland, upgrading the smoke alarms is entirely necessary to meet the new rules. The deadline is the end of next year. If you haven't upgraded by then, you or your property manager cannot legally collect rental income from the next lease renewal/changeover after that date.

Under the new rules, smoke alarms in QLD rental properties are required inside every bedroom, on every storey, and between the bedrooms and the rest of the house. They need to be photoelectric and interconnected so that if one goes off, they all go off. Any existing 240v (hard wired alarms) need to be replaced with 240v alarms - all the additional alarms required can be either 240v or 10 year battery alarms - as long as they are interconnected.

The prices vary widely amongst different companies. It's not only the price you need to look at, it's also the brand of smoke alarms the company is using. Some smoke alarms have a much higher failure rate than others, which causes headaches for the tenants, property managers and owners.

There are still around 400,000 properties to be upgraded before the deadline, and only 379 working days left. That means that more than 1,000 properties need to be upgraded every working day to meet the deadline. It's going to be difficult to get it done next year when everyone is competing for the limited resources.

If you are the owner, and you only need to install 10 year battery alarms, you could do it yourself to save money. I'm happy to advise on brands of smoke alarms or smoke alarm companies if you wish to contact me.