 Hello, welcome to today's RTA webinar recording in collaboration with Queensland Building and Construction Commission and what you need to know about pool safety in rental properties. My name is Lyn from the communication and education team of the RTA. Today we will be looking at Queensland Tenancy Law and how it relates to pool safety. Our guest speaker will look at pool safety laws and certificates, compliance and key information for landlord and tenants and regarding their responsibilities and also where to get more helpful information on today's topic. Please note the RTA cannot provide legal advice and you are encouraged to seek your own independent advice to make informed decisions. The RTA is pleased to be working with QVCC and today's guest speaker is Sue Crozier. Sue is a senior investigator with the compliance and enforcement section of QVCC and has a wealth of knowledge for all things pool safety. So on behalf of the RTA and the rental sector watching today, Sue, thank you for joining us. Thanks, Lyn. It's great to be here. So before I hand over to Sue to go through today's presentation, I'm just going to quickly touch on the tenancy laws and how it relates to pool safety. So the residential tenancies and roomy accommodation act outlines the rights and responsibilities for everyone involved in the tenancy. So for property owners, one of their obligations is going to ensure that the rental property is in good repair, fit to live in, and not in breach of any health or safety laws at the start of the tenancy. Also during the tenancy, they must continue to maintain the property by doing the repairs and general maintenance. It's not uncommon to also see special terms in a tenancy agreement on who's responsible for what with the day-to-day operation of a pool. And remember, as always, with any special terms, ensure that they do not contradict the tenancy legislation. That also allows for the manager or the owner or a tradesperson to enter to comply with the compliance and maintenance of the rental property. So the tenant must be given 24 hours notice for the entry and the tenants have obligations to ensure they don't do damage and also report any maintenance issues to their property manager or the owner. The weather's warming up and with that comes the blow-up or the portable pools for the backyard. There are compliance requirements for these and our guest speaker today is going to talk more about that during her presentation. So on that note, so I'm going to hand over to Sue from QBCC to provide really helpful information for both property owners, property managers and tenants. Thanks Lynn. So in relation to the commencement of the pool safety laws, they came out in 2010. There was a graduated introduction process which finalized in 2015. The graduated introduction process was based around what the classification of the building was. So in other words, whether it was a Class 3, which is a shared accommodation property or whether it was a single residential property, which is a Class 1. And of course, whether the property was rented or sold or had an owner occupation status. There are approximately 400,000 pools in Queensland at the moment. And of course, as Lynn alluded to, the weather's warming up and so we hope we're going to be using our swimming pools for cooling off, relaxing and maybe getting that bit of extra exercise. Unfortunately though, swimming pools can be a real danger to small children and that's why these laws were introduced. Definitely though, supervision of young children and teaching them to swim is certainly one of the safest aspect of protecting small children. But essentially, this is why the rules have come about because young children who are unsupervised do get into pool areas and of course do or can get themselves into great difficulty. The Queensland Building Construction Commission is responsible for regulating and licensing of the pool safety inspectors. Local governments, on the other hand, have wide-ranging authority to enter the properties, inspect barriers and they can take enforcement action against non-compliant barriers if they're found. In relation to the actual requirement for pool safety certificates, it's important to understand that there are two categories of pools. That is the non-shared and the shared. Shared pools, sorry, non-shared pools means that the pool is only used by the occupants of the home associated with the pool. And shared, a shared pool is a pool used by residents of a unit complex or similar. Owners of rental properties need to have the pool barrier inspected and a certificate issued. Timing depends on whether the property is a shared pool or a non-shared pool and I'll cover that information in our next slides. Inspection of barriers is undertaken by pool safety inspectors who are licensed by the QBCC. You can check the currency for pool safety certificate on the QBCC pool register. And as I mentioned earlier, it's important to know that the local government authority have wide ranging powers to enter properties and they can inspect barriers and take action if there's no certificate for that property. In relation to leasing of non-shared pools, there are different requirements for the shared and non-shared in terms of when the certificates are required, but ultimately they're both required to be inspected and have a certificate issued. For the lease of a non-shared pool, a certificate must be obtained before the lease is signed. There's no alternative. There's no there's no ifs or buts about that. It must be that the certificate is obtained before the lease is signed. If no certificate were in place at the time of the lease being signed for a non-shared pool, owners can be and are penalized for an amount of over $2,000. And also if a property manager is found to have commenced a lease without a certificate in place, the property manager may have disciplinary action commenced against them under the Property Occupations Act. QBCC does perform validation checks against the pool safety register and assessment of bond payments to determine when leases have commenced. That's how we can determine who is non-compliant or compliant in terms of when the lease has commenced. So, Sue, you somewhat in just summarizing for our audience for the terminology, the non-shared pools are usually your freestanding houses and the shared pools are usually those for like your unit and apartment and townhouse complexes. Exactly, Lynn. That's correct, yeah. So, for leasing of a shared pool, and that is where the property, as Lynn alluded to, is shared. So, the pool is used by other residents of that property. So, in other words, a unit complex managed by a body corporate is a great example. Now, so there's a lease can commence without there being a pool safety certificate, but only if the owner of the pool has given a form 36. Form 36 is a notice of no pool safety certificate and that form needs to be given to the incoming tenant, body corporate, and also to QBCC to notify that in fact there is no pool safety certificate there. Now, the issuing of the form 36 gives the body corporate the additional time of 90 days in which to obtain a pool safety certificate, but the body corporate should always maintain that the barrier is compliant, whether there is a certificate in place or not. The QBCC has issued several impringent notices for people that have found to have not issued a form 36 when they should have. In regard to compliance, one of the QBCC's roles is licensing and disciplining the pool safety inspectors. As you can see on the slide, there's been over 42 inspectors who've been disciplined this year alone and we do have a pool safety inspector search tool and we encourage homeowners and property managers to interrogate that tool so that they can find out the details of the pool safety inspector and some history about any disciplinary action if it has occurred. Just in terms of the allegations that may be made against the pool safety inspector, one of the most common that QBCC finds is that there's been a certificate issued when the pool in fact was not compliant and of course that is a big problem and that is certainly one of the key aspects of my role as a senior investigator with the pool safety unit of QBCC. And as I mentioned earlier, local governments also have a very important role in terms of inspecting barriers and they have authority to actually enter properties and inspect if there's suspicion that the pool is dangerous. QBCC has a lot of pool safety information available on its website. One of the most recent things that we've developed is this property managers checklist and although it's entitled a property managers checklist, it is applicable for use with homeowners and in fact anyone who really wants to get more information and use the checklist as a guide about how to maintain and manage that their own pool is safe. It's also even useful for tenants for that matter. It covers what you need to tell your tenants about their responsibility including their legal responsibilities and not doing anything to the pool barrier which would render it to be non-compliant and that includes putting things like child play equipment, pot plants, parking a car too close to the pool barrier, things like that which can all become quite a dangerous situation and allow a small child to climb up and over the barrier. So I understand like pool safety is very important so whether you're the owner or a tenant. So one of the questions I've heard many times over the years is why aren't the canals or the creeks and dams near houses and other overalls, why aren't they not fenced? Yeah Lynn that's a good question and it's a common question that we're faced with at QBCC. Look the legislation is primarily about protecting the children who are associated with the residential property. So in other words the pool is a part of a residential property and that is why the pool itself needs to be fenced in association with that residential property. It's obviously just simply not possible to in the regional areas for example to fence along creeks and even along some of our waterways. An example here in Brisbane if I can just use Brisbane as an example the South Bank waterway there that there's no residential accommodation associated with that particular waterways. Therefore there's no requirement for that to be fenced. It's not to say it's not dangerous but the legislation is that there's no requirement for that to be fenced because it's not associated with the residential property. And you mentioned before like I mean the importance of particularly the children that's actually renting in the properties whether they can swim or not swim. Yeah do you have any statistics or anything you can share with our audience about like any deaths that's actually occurring or the importance of why we do have these barriers in place? Unfortunately Lynn I do and QBCC and obviously local governments have to deal with the unfortunate circumstances of children and immersion incidents as a result of the child getting into the pool barrier. Look unfortunately pool safety or children drowning in pools is one of the leading causes of death for children under five years of age in Queensland and I would imagine that would be a very similar statistic throughout the whole of Australia. And also in relation to those deaths it's really important to recognise also that there are seven really tragic incidences or near misses that also occur as a result of a child getting into the barrier getting into the pool area. And when I say near misses I mean children getting into that barrier getting into the pool and unfortunately being submerged for too long and they may become or sustain a brain injury which of course isn't an absolute tragedy. So you've also mentioned QBCC licences the pool safety inspectors and so your website actually has a list of all the inspectors or what does a person do to go find a pool safety inspector? So Lynn we do have on the QBCC website you can just type in a request LRA search function for pool safety inspectors and that will bring up an entire list of all of the inspectors within the particular local council regions that you nominate. If you select on a particular pool safety inspector it will also give you some of the contact details and also some of the disciplinary history if that has if you're looking for that sort of information. But it's an important tool because it provides the information about where to actually contact the pool safety inspectors because at times sometimes you recognise that you actually need a pool safety inspector quicker than what perhaps you had originally planned so it's a good tool have available. In terms of actually does your pool barrier comply? We suggest that whether you're managing the property yourself or whether you've got a property manager engaged we recommend that you do a regular routine check of the barrier as frequently as you attend the property. And some of the points that are shown here on this slide are some of the items that we suggest that you look for. Often we find that barbecues, pot plants, children's play equipment as I mentioned earlier even cars are parked too close to the barrier and that that provides then a climbing point which a child can use to access into the barrier. So all items need to be a minimum of 900 millimetres away from the barrier on the outside and also 300 millimetres away from the inside. And that those measurements are legislated and the common sense practice there is so that a child can't reach to get into or onto an item which would allow them to climb onto the barrier and of course get into the barrier. The heights of the barriers have to be a minimum of 1200 whether it's the fence, the gate or in fact even the ballastrade area which may be on on a balcony which is overhanging the pool area. That's a good one to think about because a lot of people don't realise that and don't give that any consideration but it can certainly be a danger and it certainly is a requirement. Also check for gaps underneath the barrier. A lot of times we have found that loose pebbles or garden mulch are considered to be acceptable. I can tell you here and now that they're not because I've certainly recognised that small children can easily scrape away that those pebbles or mulch and get access into that pool area and of course do themselves significant injury. Also check that there's a CPR resuscitation sign visible from the pool enclosure and able to be read easily. CPR sign is absolutely useless if it is not able to be read easily and you know in an emergency situation that sign can be an absolute lifesaver so please ensure that it is absolutely visible and easily read. Look for signs that the gate may be being propped open. That's unfortunately it's an all too common circumstance whereby people may be getting the lawnmower out or allowing their dog to use that pool area or whatever if there's a brick or a rock or something like that placed up against that gate or even if there's an ocky strap or a small piece of rope or something. Those things are indications that someone might be regularly leaving that gate in a fully open position and that is absolutely not compliant and a high risk for little children to get into that pool area. Anyone found leaving the gate open, propping the gate open, tying the gate back and maybe penalised up to $20,000 and for a corporation that fine increases by about five times. So it is a very significant fine because it is a very very significant and dangerous thing allowing little children in through the gate. We suggest that you do regular checking of the gate hinges and the gate lock while you're there put a little bit of oil or CRC or one of those sorts of lubricant products on the gate hinges and on the latch because it encourages that that gate to be maintained a good condition and hopefully prevent those hinges and latches from failing. This little video that we've got here is just a demonstration of how to test the gate and it's very short and we recommend that you just open the gate just a few centimetres, release the gate and see how it comes back. In this particular video it's locking nice and securely and also you will hear in real life you will actually hear that that lock is actually engaging and it's secure. Give a little pull on that gate when you're on the outside give a little pull on that gate make sure that it is actually permanently and secure okay. We suggest doing that little pull because little children love to stand on the bottom rail of those gates or barriers and if their weight is on that gate it could be pulling that gate down a little bit and that may be sufficient to release the lock so give it a little pull make sure that you test it. If you find that that gate is not latching correctly please don't delay in making arrangements to get your maintenance person or actually get that thing repaired because gates are the primary cause or gate failures are the primary cause of little children getting into those pool areas and of course getting themselves into great difficulty. So what are the steps to take if the pool barrier is not compliant or there's problems like this with the gate and things like that and no one's fixing it or you know that there's some problems there. Okay so if it's the gate and I'll touch on some other issues in a moment but if it's the gate look by all means secure the gate closed use your use your tie if you're a man take your tie off and tie the damn tie around the gate to make sure that it's secure because the last thing you want is of course children getting in there but so secure the gate in a fully closed position that obviously means that no one can get in there until such time as it is repaired and as I said don't delay in getting that repair done. You can put up small protective areas of perhaps acrylic sheeting or something similar to that screwed on to cover up any gaps whether barrier might have broken palings perhaps or there might be a gap under the fence you can just secure shielding of some sort on the outside importantly on the outside to prevent kids getting in there so there are a range of things that can be done and there's no nothing to stop you doing that okay because you're actually protecting getting little preventing little children getting in there in there if it's case lin of where you've identified that there is a more significant problem and that is that you've got perhaps got a concern that the barrier was inspected previously and there may and there may be for example another pool safety inspector who's come along and they've decided that no it's not compliant now you can raise a formal complaint with QBCC if that is the case if it's and you're most welcome to do that and I as a senior investigator will most likely be the person to receive that complaint and I'll certainly deal with it looking at all of the evidence and determining exactly what has gone on if on the other hand you've got a significant issue that you feel that someone has damaged the fence or damaged the gate by all means you can contact local government and make arrangements for a local government compliance officer to come out and inspect and they can make a decision about what has gone on with that particular fence does that answer your question lin so with some of these pool gates some of them are going a bit high tech yeah some have like a keypad access to the gate instead of your standard pull-up latch that you've just showed in this video is that okay or you know or is there certain rules that that keypad access has to be it yeah lin look it's a good question new raise um so with the keypads what I what I believe you're talking about is perhaps say a body corporate situation or a resort or something like that whereby they're trying to the owners are trying to actually prevent people that unauthorized people gaining access to the pool so with a keypad or even a swipe card situation they are acceptable is as long as the actual height of that keypad or swipe card pad is at a minimum of 1500 above the ground level that's the general ruling um there are more technical details which of course we don't have time to go into but in general yes make sure that those keypads or swipe pads are 1500 millimeters above the ground level interestingly on that point though lin there's also a lot more technical details about pool safety because we're only talking here about outdoor pools but hey what about indoor pools they're a whole nother kettle of fish but they do need to uh also be uh inspected and have certificates good question lin so moving now on to tenant responsibilities as I've said the responsibility for clients for compliance with pool safety laws rests with the owner of the pool okay so if a tenant provides a pool and we all experience that around christmas time hey it's a great idea to get a little uh portable pool for the little ones to have a paddle paddle in but look please do consider that it may well be putting those little children in danger so if the tenant provides the pool it is their responsibility to register that pool with the qbcc and most importantly to maintain a safe barrier around that pool this again the significant penalties if a person is found to have a non-compliant barrier even for this little tiny uh portable pool so there are uh minimum depths or maximum depths that are are required in terms of deciding or determining whether it is actually a swimming pool and um often the pools that hold more than 300 millimeters in depth of water so one foot level of water means generally speaking that it is a swimming pool and it will be required to have a barrier remembering also that local government authorities do have powers to enter a property so if someone makes a complaint to local government they can local government can well enter a property determine whether that is a non-compliant pool uh and whether there's a non-compliant pool barrier and there will be enforcement action taken so i know i've heard from many property managers and owners that they've turned up for an inspection at a rental property and found that the tenant has propped up in the pool gate with a popland or a chair so you've mentioned before like you know can't do that so what actually happens in that situation what would the owner need to do yeah so the owner needs to take first and foremost um needs to take action to immediately rectify that situation so it's the owner's property and i would suggest that the owner would have every right you can correct me if i'm wrong here lin but if it's a safety issue um they should be able to remove that thing which is um opening that or leaving that gate prop propped open they should also report the event to the local government because as i said local government do have the right and will come and inspect and um in some situations they will find um the the the person who's willfully interfered with that particular barrier so um it is a very very serious matter and there are certainly very serious penalties for that and of course the most serious penalty or the most serious event or outcome is that a little child unfortunately gets into that pool and um and is found um in in the water so you've mentioned about portable pools so there's a you know someone's gone to the local big w or department store or a pool shop and purchased what it's like a portable pool or blow up pool for holiday time and not realizing that potential consequences or what's really required so you've really mentioned that they're going to have to like register the pool put a barrier up um what else do they need to do yeah so look you've covered most things here it is a case of registering the pool yes putting a compliant barrier up um and of course with a compliant barrier they have it's not determined compliant until such time as the certificate is issued so there is a fair bit involved and the home or sorry the tenants need to be aware of that it's not as simple as just going to kmart or woollies getting this little portable pool because in fact it's not compliant and um and they may find themselves um uh you know in in very dire circumstances not only through the injury of their own child perhaps um but but having received very very significant fines um so what about spas that's one thing we haven't touched on so far what about the spas out there yeah thanks lin um yeah look spas are certainly um considered or some spas are certainly considered to be a a swimming pool the again you know there there's a there's a raft of legislation behind a classification of what a particular what a spar is and the definition of a swimming pool which we don't have time to go into we're really not here to go into the that level of detail in i'm sure you appreciate that but in general yeah a spar is certainly a swimming pool and it does need to be um appropriately registered it does need to be fenced and certificates do need to be issued so we've covered a fair bit of information here but we've certainly limited it to to really what what we thought you would like to know but i'm sure there are many other questions and what i'd like to just in make sure that you're aware of is qbcc does have a lot more information available for homeowners tenants um and and property managers and even pool safety inspectors available on on the website um we're also here to provide um answers to some questions specific questions if you have got them we cannot give site specific advice though um even though i'm personally and well experienced and our team are well experienced um in providing advice and information we can't give site specific advice okay so the website address is up there about what you can how you can get further information from qbcc okay well thanks again soothe like this is really important information for everyone in the rental sector because obviously you know we're a warmer climate Queensland has so there's a good chance that there's rental properties out there with a pool or with a growing amount of like apartments with shared pools and things like that so the rta does highly recommend you download the checklist that sue provided up before and also to view the information on the qbcc website for all things of pool safety so just in finalizing today's presentation just make sure you understand your rights responsibilities under Queensland tenancy law and pool safety is important for both the property manager the property owner and the tenants and remember there are penalties applied for willfully interfering with a pool barrier so no propping open the gate with a pot plan because it's convenient um so again remember the penalties but also not even having the barriers up in the first place if you decide to put up one of those portable pools and download that checklist and safety booklet from the qbcc website so you can keep connected with the residential tenancies authority by subscribing to the rta news and you can also link with the rta on LinkedIn the rta is here to help you and everyone involved in the tenancy so we encourage you to be informed about your rights and obligations and view the rta's website at rta.qld.gov.au it's got a lot of information resources and forms and you can also log into the rta web services for all matters on bonds including your lodgements and refunds if you need further assistance please contact us on 1300 3 double 6 3 double 1 Monday to Friday 8 30 i am to 5 p.m so thank you to the team at qbcc for their collaboration in this recording and thank you for your time today Sue you're welcome Lynn great to be here thank you