05 JULY 2019
Unfortunate owners in the Mascot Towers complex could see up to 40 per cent of their affected units’ value wiped away due to negative stigma attached to the building. In scenes similar to what happened with the Opal Tower in Sydney Olympic Park, residents were evacuated on Friday night and structural support added to the building in Mascot after it was noticed that cracks in the building were getting wider.
“Consumers have nowhere to go in these sorts of situations, there’s nobody for them to sue, there’s nowhere for them to turn,” Stephen Goddard, a spokesperson for the Owners Corporation Network, told the ABC. “Anybody looking to purchase in a building less than 10 years of age is foolish because the defects will not have yet surfaced. “People have more consumer protection buying a fridge than a million-dollar apartment.”
Apartment owners within the building will now need to pay for repairs, likely through increased strata levies. Of the 392 units in the Opal Tower building, 155 of them are still unable to be reoccupied six months after it was evacuated on Christmas Eve last year. “We’re now seeing owners confronted with the possibility that their investment … may be lower than their outstanding mortgage,” Mr Goddard added.
> Read the full article at realestate.com.au
Owen Roberts