TL;DR — Haven Compliance inspects, installs and certifies window safety in Cremorne — tucked around the foreshore between Cremorne Point and Shell Cove, where steeply sloping streets mean a unit that reads as ground-floor at the street entry can stand three or four floors above the water-facing ground at the rear. The height test under section 118 measures against the actual external ground, so on these slopes the compliance scope must be measured, not assumed. Every qualifying window is tested to 125mm and 250 newtons — 1940s walk-ups and Murdoch Street newer builds alike — with same-day digital certificates. Call +61 2 8000 0287.
Haven Compliance — a NSW window safety specialist experienced on precisely the terrain Cremorne is built on. The suburb sits between Neutral Bay and Mosman, wrapped around the foreshore from Cremorne Point to Shell Cove, and its geography shapes its buildings: steeply sloping streets, harbour-facing apartment blocks, and a stock that ranges from 1940s brick walk-ups and converted houses to newer developments along Murdoch Street and around Cremorne Junction.
We work with the strata managers and owners corporations across that mix, and we bring the one discipline this suburb’s topography demands above all: measuring the compliance scope against the actual external ground on every elevation, because on these slopes the street tells you almost nothing about the harbour side.
On a sloped foreshore site, the criteria are only as good as the measurement — floor numbering is a fiction the hillside ignores. NSW settled this in law on 13 March 2018: under section 118 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, every residential strata scheme’s owners corporation must ensure complying devices on windows that open, sit over floors two metres or more above the external ground, and begin their openings under 1.7 metres from that floor.
The hardware standard is twofold: restrict the opening to 125mm or less — or fit a robust screen — and withstand 250 newtons of outward force, with AS 5203:2016 supplying the test method for both. Devices may include an adult release provided they re-engage afterwards; insect flyscreens do not comply under any reading. The duty also makes no distinction between common property and lots — every qualifying window in the scheme is the owners corporation’s responsibility.
Two corrections worth stating plainly, because older marketing material — including material previously circulated about Cremorne — gets them wrong. There is no statutory requirement for an annual inspection: yearly checks are prudent best practice, not a legal mandate, and we will never tell you otherwise. And the maximum statutory penalty for a non-compliant owners corporation is $550 — the serious exposure is not the fine, it is a preventable child fall and the civil liability and insurance consequences that follow.
Records of inspections and remediation belong in the scheme’s files for 7 years under section 180.
Because the two-metre test measures the internal floor against the external ground surface below it — and on Cremorne’s foreshore streets, that surface can drop three or four storeys between the front door and the rear boundary. A unit entered at street level from Cremorne Road may have its living-room windows suspended well above the water-facing garden; a ” first-floor” flat on the high side of a sloping street may genuinely be exempt on one elevation and squarely qualifying on the other.
Informal self-assessments miss this constantly, and so do inspections that never walk the rear boundary. The result is the sloped-site signature failure: buildings whose compliance history only ever considered the street elevation, carrying a rear face of qualifying windows that no device has ever touched. Our technicians assess every window against the actual external ground level, elevation by elevation — which protects the owners corporation from a scoping gap that is invisible from the street and obvious from the garden.
Under-scoped harbour elevations — the slope failure described above, and the most consequential finding in the suburb. Aged hardware in the 1940s stock — walk-ups and conversions carrying devices from earlier compliance eras, or none at all. Foreshore corrosion on water-facing mechanisms, gentler than the ocean suburbs but persistent. Converted-house complications — windows never designed as apartment windows, retrofitted into strata service with improvised hardware.
And insect screens trusted as protection, as everywhere. A retest of known devices never finds the under-scoped elevation — only a measured re-scope does, which is why the first Haven inspection on a sloped site so often resets the building’s understanding of its own obligation.
Boundary first. The technician walks the site’s actual levels — street front, side setbacks, the drop to the rear — before testing begins, so the scope reflects the building rather than its floor plan. Every qualifying window is then physically verified against 125mm and 250 newtons, with a photograph per result; exempt windows are documented with the reason, so the register answers the whole question. Cremorne’s resident mix gets the coordination it needs: long-term owner-occupiers — some very particular about access to their units — receive clear notice and predictable timing through the manager’s entry-notice process, while tenanted lots route through their letting agents.
The visit is minutes per unit, nothing is left disturbed, and authorised replacements are fitted on the spot with REMSAFE hardware, marine-suitable on the water-facing elevations. The photographic report plus the window-by-window register and digital compliance certificate arrive the same day. The full on-the-day detail is in our inspection process guide.
Sloped-site scoping is part of the inspection here, not a variation — the measurement is what you are buying. Pricing is per unit, fixed before booking, and shaped by the number of units, access logistics, and window count. There are no hourly rates and no open-ended extras — the quote you approve is the invoice you receive. Three numbers cover almost every engagement: $250 + GST for a single property, $490 + GST for schemes of 2 to 10 units, and a fixed on-request quote above that — certificate included, delivered the same day as the inspection.
Anything that fails is quoted per window in REMSAFE hardware before a dollar is committed, with on-the-spot replacement wherever standing authorisation exists. Consolidation is the committee’s real discount lever: one combined inspection-and-remediation project instead of two engagements, and a place on the local grouped run instead of a standalone booking — the overhead saved is genuine and repeatable. There are no hidden line items behind the fee: report, register, photographs and same-day certificate are all part of it, as is the hardware call-out.
The comparison worth making in Cremorne is end-to-end — what does certified compliance actually cost by completion — because inspections priced cheap and documented extra have a way of arriving expensive.
That conversion history is compliance history. Many of Cremorne’s smaller schemes began life as single houses — Federation and inter-war homes divided into flats decades ago — and their windows were never designed for strata service. Conversions produce odd qualifying windows: landing windows over stairwell voids, rear bedroom windows above terraced gardens, dormers and sleep-outs added in renovations that nobody ever assessed against the criteria.
The scheme’s obligation covers all of them, and their variety defeats any standard checklist. The practical path for these buildings is a proper measured baseline: every window found, assessed against the actual ground below it, tested if qualifying, documented either way. Converted buildings are usually small — the audit is a morning — and the outcome is disproportionate: a fresh register that finally matches the building, plus fixed per-window pricing for whatever the decades missed.
From there, the annual cycle keeps a once-ambiguous building boringly, provably compliant. Conversion schemes are also disproportionately self-managed, which means no agency compliance calendar catches the gap. If your Cremorne building is a converted house run by its own committee, our self-managed scheme guide covers the whole cycle — and assigning one committee member as the window safety owner is the single change that keeps the baseline from going stale.
Strata managers whose lower North Shore portfolios thread through Cremorne, Neutral Bay and Mosman — grouped scheduling, separate registers per scheme with per-building reminders. Owners corporations and committees, from converted-house schemes at the Point to the newer Murdoch Street developments, including self-managed committees in the smaller buildings. Property managers and landlords across the rental layer. Vendors and buyers in a premium harbourside market where a current compliance position is increasingly requested in strata searches.
Neutral Bay and Mosman have their own location pages; portfolio scheduling covers the whole corridor.
Because on this terrain the costly error precedes the hardware: it is the scope. A provider who works from the strata plan and the street view inherits every blind spot the slope creates and certifies them; we measure the ground, then test the windows, then document both — every device force-tested and photographed, every exemption reasoned, coverage stated plainly. That is what a certificate should have underneath it. One provider covering the complete chain, fixed pricing, same-day documentation.
And the honesty notes as standard: NSW has no official inspector certification scheme, and no statute mandates annual inspection — the duty is a continuously compliant, correctly scoped building, and on Cremorne’s slopes the second adjective is where the work is.
Once the slope is measured into the register, the rhythm is straightforward. Buildings on our annual reinspection and maintenance program get every device retested — water-facing elevations checked hardest — with in-visit maintenance for wear items, marine-suitable replacements where the harbour air has begun its work, and the register rolled forward with a one-page change summary for the committee. Automated reminders track each anniversary.
The measured baseline never has to be repeated unless the building changes: from year two the cycle simply maintains a scope that is finally correct. Annual is best practice rather than statute, as we say on every page — but for buildings whose obligation was mis-measured for decades, the standing cycle is what keeps the correction permanent.
Yes. The test measures each window against the external ground directly below it, and on Cremorne’s slopes the rear of a street-level unit can stand several metres above the water-facing garden. Rear and side elevations need measuring, not assuming.
Fully. Once the building is a residential strata scheme, section 118 covers every qualifying window, including odd conversion-era ones — landing windows, dormers, sleep-outs — that no checklist anticipates. A measured baseline audit finds them all.
With clear notice, predictable timing and a visit measured in minutes. The entry-notice process is followed exactly, the technician disturbs nothing, and owner-occupiers who wish to be present are welcome — most find the process reassuring rather than intrusive.
More slowly, but genuinely. Water-facing mechanisms age faster than street-facing ones, warranting closer testing on those elevations and marine-suitable replacement components where corrosion has begun.
No. The law never fixed a timetable for inspections. Annual retesting is best practice; the legal duty is a continuously compliant, correctly scoped building — and on sloped sites the scoping deserves equal billing with the devices.
Not sure which service tier fits your building? Our compliance specialists can help you understand your requirements and choose the right option.
