Old balustrades: legal, liable, or overdue?

Sydney is full of balconies built when a 900mm rail with wide gaps was perfectly legal. Those balustrades did their job for forty years. The question owners and strata committees now face is when yesterday's compliance becomes today's liability, and what replacing it properly involves.

Grandfathering, and its limits

A barrier that met the rules when it was built is generally allowed to remain. But the protection ends where deterioration begins: rusted posts, loose fixings and cracked glass are defects now, not history. And any replacement or substantial repair must meet the current NCC in full: one-metre heights, the 125mm gap rule, engineered loads.

Why strata reports keep flagging balustrades

A balcony balustrade in a strata scheme is common property, so the owners corporation owns both the rail and the risk. Building inspections increasingly single out pre-standard balustrades because the committee that knows about a problem and defers it also carries the liability for it. The practical path is an assessment, a priced scope, and a staged replacement across the block.

What replacement looks like

We measure every balcony individually, fabricate to the current code, and stage installs so residents keep access. One fabricator across the whole block means the finishes match, the certification paperwork arrives as one package, and the committee deals with one contact instead of five trades.

The homeowner version

For a house, the sums are simpler: if the rail moves when you lean on it, if a child could climb it, or if rust is coming through the coating, it is due. Replacement to the current code typically takes a week or two and resolves the question for decades.