More than 90% of apartment owners say they don’t support private certification

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

An inquiry into faulty apartment buildings in New South Wales has heard that owners overwhelmingly don’t support private certification and believe the protections for owners or purchasers are inadequate.

An online survey commissioned by the parliamentary inquiry found that more than 90% of respondents are very dissatisfied or dissatisfied with the current process of private certification. Over 90% of respondents believe the consumer protections for owners and purchasers of new apartments and dwellings are inadequate or highly inadequate.

The findings suggest that the government’s recently announced reforms to the building industry may not go far enough to placate many home owners.

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Under the reform package private certification will remain but the government plans to introduce laws requiring categories of building practitioners who are defined as “building designers” to formally declare that plans, specifications and performance solutions are compliant with the Building Code of Australia. Builders will need to declare that they built the building according to plans.

As well as the statutory warranty, the government plans to introduce an industry-wide duty of care to homeowners, owners’ corporations, subsequent titleholders and small businesses so that a broader range of building and construction practitioners are held to account for defective work, and to provide stronger protections.

The committee is due to hold hearings next week.

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More than 390 people responded to the survey on the parliament’s website, and only a small proportion of them were from the high-profile buildings such as the Opal Tower and Mascot Towers, which have been evacuated due to building faults.

“Almost half of respondents are owners or residents of buildings with defects, including residents of Mascot Towers and buildings with flammable cladding,” the upper house MLC David Shoebridge said.

The report also revealed that there were mixed experiences when the defects involved common areas, which then became the responsibility of strata committees, which are responsible for the building.

There were contrasting responses to level of satisfaction with the response from the strata committee: 43% were very dissatisfied or dissatisfied, while 34% were satisfied or very satisfied.

The survey invited open-ended responses and revealed the heartbreak and stress that shoddy building standards cause.

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“I am a strata manager and have spent the last 17 years dealing with defects, under various regimes. The process is unrelenting on owners, causing financial and emotional stress as first the insurers, and now builders, seek to fatigue owners’ corporations in litigation. I have cases 15 years on and still open,” one respondent in metropolitan Sydney wrote.

“Our owners’ corporation has been able to get compensation for defects but only by long court proceedings. We are now going through long and protracted rectification works, often uncovering further defects in the process,” another reported.

It was equally bad for tenants. One tenant in Zetland reported being electrocuted numerous times, dealing with water leaks through the apartment, living without hot water, and then being denied any compensation for the inconvenience.