Fire Safety Certificates and Statements

A Fire Safety Certificate must be submitted by the building owner for:

• a new building, before it is used
• changed use of a building, before the building is used, or
• fire safety upgrade works required by Council.

Use the form below to submit a Fire Safety Certificate, and return it to Council and NSW Fire and Rescue with a copy of the Fire Safety Schedule.

Fire Safety Certificate form DOCX, 165.53 KB

After the Fire Safety Certificate has been issued, you will need to submit an Annual Fire Safety Statement every 12 months.

This annual statement must be submitted within 12 months of the date of issue of the Fire Safety Certificate or the previously given annual fire safety statement.

The Annual Fire Safety Statement form must be completed and returned to Council and NSW Fire and Rescue with a copy of the Fire Safety Schedule.

The NSW Government has published an updated standard template form which must be used when issuing fire safety statements from Monday 1 March 2021.

The form has been amended following the commencement of the Government approved Fire Protection Accreditation Scheme for accredited practitioners (fire safety) under section 59 of the Building and Development Certifiers Act 2018.

You can download a copy of the form below,

Fire Safety Statement form

You can also download a copy of the form from the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment’s website

This statement only applies to critical fire safety measures. These are measures that are important enough to need inspection more often than once a year.

The fire safety schedule will list any measures that are considered critical, and how often they need to be inspected.

Use the link below to download the form for annual / supplementary Fire Safety Statements.

Fire Safety Statement form

It is an offence not to provide an Annual Fire Safety Statement by the due date.  Heavy and continuing weekly penalty notices apply.

1 week late: $1000
2 weeks late: $2000
3 weeks late: $3000
4+ weeks late: $4000

These penalties can also apply if your statement or certificate is not prepared in line with the state regulation.

Failure to submit an Annual Fire Safety Statement could also lead to legal proceedings in the Land and Environment Court, with penalties up to $110,000.

Council may consider requests for small extensions of time to lodge fire safety statements in cases where there is a legitimate unanticipated event which prevents you from meeting the due date.

If you want to apply for an extension of time, you must:

• Make your application well ahead of the due date - ideally as soon as possible, and at least three weeks before the due date.
• Make sure all sections of the application form below are completed, and all the requested documents are attached.
• Include enough evidence to show that a legitimate unanticipated event has occurred.

Incomplete or late applications, or those without valid reasons, will be refused and you may face enforcement action.

If you have a history of making late submissions, we are unlikely to support an application for an extension.

Reasons not accepted

We will not support requests for an extension of time due to the following reasons:

• You forgot to organise an inspection, or left it too late.
• Changes to strata or property manager.
• Change of fire safety service provider (APFS).
• You had a dispute with your APFS, strata or property manager, tenant, developer or builder.
• You didn't have power or water connected to the property as it was unoccupied. Vacant buildings must still submit annual fire safety statements.
• You're waiting on quotes for work or repairs.
• You need to organise additional repair work.
• You haven't been able to contact your APFS (if this happens, you may need to consider changing your APFS).

Because you have 12 months between due dates, we expect you to plan ahead and allow enough time to deal with any of these types of issues.

Remember, your reason for requesting an extension must be both legitimate and unexpected, and you will need to show proof of this.

Application form

Use the form below to request an extension of time.

We will invoice you for the approved fee (shown below) which must be paid before your application for an extension is assessed.

Extension of Time Request Form  PDF, 183.36 KB

Fees for extension of time requests