Short answer
Yes — NSW strata buildings are required to have complying window safety devices on certain windows to stop young children falling. The obligation applied from a fixed deadline that has now passed, so it’s an ongoing “must be in place” requirement, not a future one. For common-property windows, the owners corporation is responsible for fitting and maintaining the devices.
What the requirement is
The rule came out of the strata reforms and required owners corporations to install complying window safety devices on relevant windows by a set deadline (13 March 2018). That date has passed, so the position now is simply that the devices must already be in place and working — a scheme that never fitted them, or whose devices have failed, is non-compliant today.
A device “complies” if it restricts how far the window opens (broadly, so a young child can’t fit through the gap) and can resist a firm push, while still allowing the window to be released — importantly, it must not prevent the window being used as an emergency exit where that matters.
Flag: the precise triggers and specifications — which windows are caught (broadly, where the floor inside is a couple of metres or more above the surface outside and the opening sits low enough for a child to reach), the exact opening limit, and the force/child-resistant-release requirements — are set in the strata legislation and regulation and are technical. Confirm the exact measurements for a given window with the current NSW rules or a qualified installer rather than eyeballing it.
Whose windows, whose responsibility
Responsibility follows the boundary. For common-property windows the owners corporation must fit and maintain the devices. Where a window is part of a lot, the interaction between the owner and the owners corporation can be less obvious, and the safest course is for the committee to confirm coverage across the whole building rather than assume individual owners have handled their own.
Why it’s enforced strictly
This is a child-safety measure with penalties attached, so it isn’t optional or “when we get to it”. A missing or broken restrictor on a caught window is a live compliance gap, and the owners corporation carries it.
Making sure none are missed
The common failure mode isn’t refusal — it’s windows quietly slipping through the audit, or a fitted device failing years later and nobody re-checking. Straita lets a self-managed committee log the window safety obligation and keep it on the recurring-checks list, so the coverage gets confirmed and periodically revisited rather than assumed done once and forgotten.
Primary sources
- Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW) — window safety device requirements for owners corporations.
- NSW Government — Strata schemes (Fair Trading) — window safety devices and owners corporation duties.