Despite all the residents of Sydney’s cracked Opal tower being told to move out of the building as investigations into its structural failure continue, some are refusing to leave and others are trying to break their leases.

The 300 or so residents were told on Thursday the building would need to be emptied for at least 10 days.

The Sydney Olympic Park building had a concrete panel collapse on Monday that triggered the evacuation of the tower and the surrounding areas. The building company Icon said it was conducting a thorough investigation into the cause.

Residents were given until 5pm on Friday to leave but a spokesman for the building developer, Ecove, said some had decided to stay. The Ecove company director, Bassam Aflak, said: “Not surprisingly, some tenants will want to break leases.

“At the moment we are focused on helping residents through the current issue,” he said on Saturday. The Department of Fair trading met with Ecove and Icon yesterday and told us they were satisfied with our processes and communications with residents.”

The department has also put an Opal Tower fact sheet online for residents and landlords.

Aflak said residents were also being offered financial support for living expenses while engineers surveyed the tower. But he said those who had been moved to hotels might have to move once again on New Years’ Eve.

“Icon’s liaison officers have advised us that a small number of residents may have to move again on New Year’s Eve because some hotels were already fully booked,” he said. “We realise this is another nuisance for those impacted, and sincerely apologise to them. We are supporting Icon which is working hard on solutions.”

He said Ecove was “pushing as hard as everyone else for information on what’s happened, and for speedy rectification”.

The engineering firm WSP, one of the investigators being employed by Icon, said the building was structurally sound but residents needed to leave to allow engineers to assess and remediate the site in the quickest time possible. One of the factors being explored by the engineers is whether the unique gardens that run through the centre of the building may have compromised its structural integrity.

The damaged section of the building on level 10 had been reinforced as a precautionary measure, WSP said in a statement to residents.

Julian Doyle, the New South Wales director of Icon, said the apartment tower was not at risk of collapsing but the fastest way for the issue to be dealt with was to remove all residents.

“I think ultimately the building will be as it was designed to be,” he said.

An angry resident confronted Doyle during his news conference on Thursday at the base of the tower, demanding better temporary accommodation and a clearer timeline of when they would be allowed back home.

Doyle could not guarantee residents would be able to move back in after 10 days.

The opposition leader, Michael Daley, who visited the building on Friday, criticised the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, for failing to inspect the site.

“I am here again today to ask the premier to show some leadership and look after these people,” Daley told reporters.

He said the New South Wales building certification system needed to be improved, adding that developers should not be able to pick their own certifiers, and the system needed to be generally more rigorous.

On Friday, the government said it had appointed an independent panel of engineering experts to investigate the tower.

A spokesman for the planning minister, Anthony Roberts, said it was “monitoring the situation very carefully”.

The two engineers, Prof Mark Hoffman and John Carter, will investigate the pre-cast concrete construction method used in the construction of the tower.

“If our investigation uncovers an issue relating to pre-cast concrete, that information will be shared with our report to government,” they said in a joint statement.