TL;DR — Haven Compliance inspects, installs and certifies window safety in McMahons Point — a narrow headland between Lavender Bay and Berry Bay whose small footprint holds intense strata density on ground that falls sharply toward the water on both sides. Nearly every multi-storey building here is strata-titled and slope-built, which makes compliance scoping a site measurement before it is anything else: harbour-facing elevations qualify emphatically while Blues Point Road fronts read modest. Every qualifying window tested to 125mm and 250 newtons — measured, photographed, certificated the same day. Call +61 2 8000 0287.
Haven Compliance — a NSW window safety specialist with the slope discipline this headland demands. McMahons Point is small — roughly Blues Point Road, the foreshore reserve and the ridge above Lavender Bay — but its residential density is high, its buildings are almost universally strata-titled, and the majority sit on ground that falls sharply toward the water on one side or both. That combination makes window safety compliance here a more careful exercise than any flat-site suburban inspection.
We work with the strata managers, committees and owners of the headland’s stock — view apartments whose harbour outlooks across to the Bridge and CBD are the entire local economy, mid-century blocks stepping down the slopes, and the older buildings threaded along the ridge — with measured scoping as the first act of every engagement, because on this terrain the scope is the inspection’s hardest question.
On a headland falling to water on both sides, the two-metre criterion is met building-wide more often than any floor plan admits. The duty comes from section 118 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, in force for every residential strata scheme in NSW since 13 March 2018. It requires the owners corporation to ensure complying safety devices on every qualifying window in the building: a window that can be opened, where the floor inside is two metres or more above the ground outside, and the lowest part of the opening starts less than 1.7 metres above that floor.
A complying device does two measurable things: it holds the opening at 125mm or less (or is a robust screen), and it resists 250 newtons of outward force — AS 5203:2016 being the standard test method for both. Adult-releasable designs are acceptable where re-engagement is possible; ordinary flyscreens are not acceptable anywhere. And the duty is building-wide: lot windows sit under the owners corporation’s obligation exactly as common-property windows do.
Because misinformation has circulated about McMahons Point before, two points deserve plain words. No law requires an annual inspection — the yearly cycle is sound practice, not a mandate, and we will not pretend otherwise. And the statutory fine tops out at $550 for a non-compliant owners corporation; the real risk was never the penalty but a preventable fall, with the civil and insurance consequences that follow it. Inspection and remediation records stay in the scheme’s files for 7 years under section 180.
The slope is the story, twice over. The headland drops toward Lavender Bay on the east and Berry Bay on the west, and buildings entered at Blues Point Road level routinely stand two, three, four storeys above the ground on their water sides — with the qualifying windows concentrated on precisely the harbour-facing elevations where the views live and the values sit. Street-side self-assessment fails here structurally: the front door’s opinion of the building bears no relation to the drop behind it.
The stock spans the lower North Shore‘s usual eras — mid-century blocks with retrofit generations, older buildings with legacy hardware aged in harbour air, and premium renovations that shuffled devices without anyone re-testing — while the view economy concentrates big openable windows on the exposed elevations, with all the leverage and corrosion questions large harbour-facing sashes always raise. Small suburb, serious terrain, high values: McMahons Point rewards precision and punishes assumption, which is the whole local brief.
Under-scoped water-side elevations — the headland’s defining gap: qualifying windows over serious drops that street-based histories never counted. Legacy hardware in the older stock, aged past the force test in harbour air. View-window under-restraint — big sashes with devices never rated for their leverage. Renovation losses across a suburb that upgrades constantly. Harbour-side corrosion at fixings on both bay aspects. And flyscreens wrongly counted as compliance, with the Bridge framed behind them.
Levels first, always. The technician walks the site’s actual ground — Blues Point Road front, both bay aspects, the setbacks stepping down — before testing begins, so the register reflects the headland rather than the floor plan. Every qualifying window is then put through the 125mm and 250 newton checks and photographed; big view sashes are load-tested with their leverage in mind; harbour-side fixings get the corrosion read; exempt windows are documented with reasons.
Access runs through managers and committees with the courtesy this suburb’s owner-occupiers expect — predictable timing, minutes per lot, nothing disturbed. Authorised REMSAFE replacements are fitted in-visit, marine-suitable on the water aspects, and the digital certificate, report and register, photographs throughout arrive the same day. See our inspection process guide for the full day, start to finish.
Slope scoping is the inspection here, not an extra — the published tiers carry the measurement work on both bay aspects. The structure is per unit and fixed in advance — shaped by unit count, access logistics and windows per lot, never by the clock. What the committee approves is what the invoice says. Rates are published rather than negotiated: a single property runs $250 + GST, buildings of 2 to 10 units run $490 + GST, and 11-plus-unit buildings take a fixed quote on request.
The digital compliance certificate lands the same day, inside the fee. Failed windows convert into an itemised REMSAFE remediation quote — per window, fixed — and pre-authorised replacements are completed in the same visit. Two structural savings beat any haggling: merge remediation into the inspection project, and share a run with nearby schemes. Window lock compliance overspend is nearly always coordination cost wearing a disguise.
One fee buys the finished article: the inspection, its photographic report, the building’s register and the same-day certificate, hardware call-out included. McMahons Point committees weighing quotes should total the road to certified compliance rather than the first invoice — the discount inspection that charges for its own paperwork, or needs a return trip for hardware, is usually the dearer path.
Owner-occupier committees of the view stock — invested stewards of buildings whose harbour aspects are their identity. Strata managers running the harbour pocket — McMahons Point grouped with Kirribilli and Milsons Point in one scheduling run. Small self-managed schemes along the ridge, covered by our self-managed scheme guide. Renovating owners, whose projects deserve post-works window rechecks before the new joinery hides old gaps.
And vendors, in a market where premium provenance is read line by line and a current window safety certificate reads exactly right. Kirribilli and Milsons Point have their own pages; the North Shore regional page carries the corridor view. A free fix worth adopting headland-wide: the glass-cleaning clause. View buildings here clean their windows often — the outlook is the asset — and high-access cleans release devices and open sashes fully, making a clean the most common event after which restrictors are found disengaged.
One line in the cleaning contract, requiring devices re-engaged and confirmed on completion, closes the headland’s quietest compliance leak at zero cost; we flag clean-affected elevations in the register so each cycle checks them first.
Because on this headland the expensive mistake happens before any device is touched: the scope. A provider working from floor plans and street views inherits every illusion the slopes create and certifies them — leaving the harbour-facing elevations, the suburb’s entire point, outside the register. We measure the ground, test what actually qualifies, photograph everything and state coverage plainly: the register describes the site, both bays included.
One accountable provider, end to end — measured scoping, load testing, marine-suitable REMSAFE installation, re-verification, records — published tiers, same-day certificates. And the standing honesty notes: NSW neither certifies window safety inspectors officially nor legislates an annual check. The duty is a continuously compliant building, measured against the ground it actually stands on.
With the terrain baked permanently into the register. The measured baseline never repeats unless the building changes — from year two the annual cycle simply maintains a scope that is finally correct: devices retested under load, water-aspect hardware corrosion-checked hardest, view sashes verified against their leverage, wear corrected in-visit, and the register rolling forward with the headland’s geometry documented once and dependable thereafter.
Automated reminders track each anniversary. Annual is best practice rather than statute, stated plainly as everywhere. For buildings whose obligation was mis-measured for decades, the standing cycle is what keeps the correction permanent — and on this headland, permanence is the entire prize. Year on year the register compounds: the same elevations, the same measured levels, the same load tests, dated and photographed — until the building’s compliance history is as solid as its view, and considerably better documented.
Small suburb, serious slopes, standing registers: McMahons Point compliance, kept the way the headland keeps everything — carefully, and with the harbour watching.
Because the headland falls hard toward both bays: water-side elevations routinely stand storeys above their ground while street fronts read modest. The criteria measure each window against the ground below it — the slope decides, never the facade.
Correctly rated hardware — large sashes generate real leverage against restrictors, so devices are selected for the specific window system and force-tested in place. Done properly, 125mm still ventilates and the view stays the view.
Yes — renovation is the suburb’s quiet compliance event: devices come off for works and don’t return, and new joinery hides old gaps. A post-works recheck of affected windows closes what the project opened.
Persistently — both bay aspects work fixings and cables year-round, gentler than surf coast but permanent. Water-facing elevations get the corrosion read every cycle and marine-suitable replacements as standard.
No: nothing in the Act prescribes how often inspections must happen. Retesting annually is the prudent course, and once the headland’s slopes are measured into the register, the yearly cycle keeps that hard-won accuracy permanent.
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