Office renovation and fire regulations

I wrote a letter, which was published in the Straits Times Forum, about the high cost of renovating an office, which included a fee of $3,500 to get an engineer to certify that the renovation met the fire safety regulations in a small premise of 1,600 sf.

Major Gobi of the Singapore Civil Defence Force replied that under the regulation a full submission is not required for renovation that can be classified as "minor alteration and addition". I called Major Gobi to ask for the definition of minor addition and alteration and whether renovation involving the putting up of a false ceiling and relocation of sprinklers would fall under this category. Major Gobi did not know and said that he would arrange for his expert to call me.

I manage to speak to the expert, Major Lim, a week later. He said that I still needed an engineer to certify the works after it has been completed, but it need not be a full submission. This matter was still unclear to me.

In the meantime, due to urgency, I had asked the renovation contractor to proceed with the works, including the payment of the fee of $3,500. The contractor had told me that the building manager would not allow the renovation work to proceed without a signed certificate by the engineer. I had no choice in this matter but to pay the ransom fee.

This lack of clarity has caused me to spend a large professional fees for a simple piece of work.  If senior people in the SCDF could not give an answer on what constitute "minor alteration and addition", how can they expect the public to know? With this type of uncertainty, it is easy for the building manager to insist on requirements to "be safe and sure" but the trouble is that this attitude is causing other people to pay a large sum of money.

The SCDF said that they are in no position to regulate the fees charged by the professional engineer. But they are the party that is responsible to write the regulation in the first place. If they cannot play a role in regulating the fees, how do they expect the end user, who has to renovate the premises, to be in a better position to negotiate the fees in this wonderful "free market environment" in Singapore?

I hope that our government leaders will wake up to the real world and understand why the public is complaining about the high cost of living, the high cost of doing business, and why hapless consumers are being ripped off to pay a lot of money just to get things done.

Tan Kin Lian