Building Anger
12 AUGUST 2019 > Watch the full segment at abcnews.com.au Liv Casbin
NSW government scrambles for answers at building defects inquiry
12 AUGUST 2019 The pain of NSW's building crisis was captured in Mascot Towers owner Vijay Vital's testimony at the inquiry, when he broke down describing the loss of his home. Mascot Towers was evacuated on June 14 due to cracks but engineers have yet to find the cause. "I stand here as a parent and my daughter asks me "when can I go home?" he said amid tears. "I [...]
Channel 9 News – “Under Construction”
6 AUGUST 2019 In 2018 the government announced "the biggest crackdown on dodgy certifiers in our State's history". In July 2019 the opposition asked what has happened? The Minister responded that there is a raft of practitioners with their fingerprints all over building defects. That's true. But OCN pointed to all the owners who are suffering terribly while government dallies. > Watch the channel 9 news clip at youtube.com Eddy [...]
Mascot Towers Owners Hit $76,000 per Unit
4 AUGUST 2019 Owners of apartments in the evacuated Mascot Towers building in Sydney are planning to sleep on the street to protest a damages bill of at least $76,000 per unit to fix defects, as questions continue on who will ultimately have to pay. The owners face a $10 million bill – half the initial building cost of $22 million – to fix cracks in the building's primary support [...]
Building certifiers leave a trail of chaos
3 AUGUST 2019 A small group of private certifiers have signed off on 130 buildings with compliance problems, including allowing residents to move into one property that did not have toilets or taps fitted. The six offenders have been hit with 111 disciplinary actions since 2005, accounting for about a quarter of all such penalties. The Owners' Corporation Network, the peak body for apartment owners, said the repeat offending was [...]
The hidden costs of Brisbane’s apartment correction
1 AUGUST 2019 In total, Brisbane has foregone 2497 of the 4014 apartments approved in towers since 2009, said Don Smith, BCI's economics team leader. "From an 'impending oversupply' perspective out of a total of 4000 apartments that are being proposed, nearly 2500 have yet to meet appropriate technical and commercial criteria," Smith said. "There is an element of self-regulation." The figures paint a reassuring macroeconomic picture of a market correcting, [...]
Call for NSW building commissioner to enact acute 30-day plan
1 AUGUST 2019 New NSW building commissioner David Chandler should strike an acute 30-day plan to help beleaguered homeowners who have been evacuated from their defective homes, ahead of larger plans to overhaul the industry, industry groups say. NSW appointed Mr Chandler, a building and construction expert and University of Western Sydney adjunct professor, as the state's first building commissioner on Thursday in an effort to rehabilitate the state's ailing [...]
Opal Tower residents to sue NSW government
30 JULY 2019 Owners of units in Sydney’s troubled Opal Tower are suing the NSW government for compensation, the Premier has this morning confirmed. Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she doesn’t “blame anybody” for taking legal action after a building flaw resulting in a large crack saw residents of the tower evacuated on Christmas Eve last year. "This is an unfortunate set of circumstances. We inherited the system we have today [...]
NSW Government Reforms Not Sufficient: Industry
29 JULY 2019 The NSW government's reform plans for the state's failing building and construction industry are not enough to fix it, industry groups warn. Consultations on the state's planned reforms – which involve the adoption of the recommendations from the Shergold-Weir report ahead of new legislation – have closed, drawing strong responses from the public. The Owners Corporation Network (OCN) submission to the government says the current reforms merely [...]
What to do about defective buildings
23 JULY 2019 Jimmy Thomson from flat-chat.com.au and Stephen Goddard, OCN spokesperson talk about what to do if you live in a building that requires remediation. > Listen to the full interview at abc.net.au James Valentine
State and territory building ministers agree on national approach to industry reform
18 JULY 2019 The Federal Government says it has brokered an agreement with the states and territories to create a "nationally consistent approach" to reforming the building industry. Speaking during an emergency meeting of state building ministers and industry stakeholders in Sydney today, national Industry Minister Karen Andrews said all parties had "brokered an agreement" to centralise the response to a wave of problems across the country. The nationally consistent [...]
The Australian Nightmare
17 JULY 2019 Building ministers from around the country are trying to work out how to restore confidence in the construction sector following the emergency evacuation of two Sydney apartment blocks when structural cracks appeared. > Watch the full segment at iview.abc.net.au Jules Holman
Immediate reforms: Triguboff’s Meriton wants building industry change
12 JULY 2019 Harry Triguboff's Meriton wants immediate reforms to the construction industry in NSW to stop substandard buildings from going up, as a growing number of experts argue the government should issue low-interest loans to apartment owners battling defects. The perception of a crisis in Sydney’s residential apartment market snowballed this week after the Herald revealed another evacuation of a unit block at Zetland, while the Premier conceded that [...]
2GB ‘How to Avoid Buying A Dud Property’
11 JULY 2019 With Sydney-siders growing increasingly nervous about defective properties, here are some top tips for how to avoid buying a lemon. A third Sydney apartment block has been rendered unliveable in the space of twelve months after major defects were discovered in the buildings. With the owners of these properties essentially left high and dry by the builders and government, how will you make sure you won’t live [...]
‘No way of knowing’ how many strata buildings in Australia could crack
11 JULY 2019 The alarming rise in New South Wales apartment buildings found with cracks is a nation-wide issue that 'has been building over the last 20 years.' Strata lawyer Stephen Goddard from the Owners Corporation Network has told Sky News the discovery of cracks in three NSW buildings has raised alarm bells in the building industry. 'One building is an accident, two’s a coincidence and three is systemic failure,' [...]
How to avoid buying a dodgy apartment
11 JULY 2019 With state planning ministers meeting this month, informed in part by a behind-closed-doors meeting of development “stakeholders” in NSW last week, you can be sure that building defects in their myriad forms will be on their agenda. From the crumbling Opal and Mascot towers in Sydney to the estimated thousands of apartment blocks across the land that are clad in deadly flammable composite, there will be plenty [...]
Danger Sydney apartment defects revealed in Zetland block
10 JULY 2019 A third Sydney apartment block is under scrutiny over building and safety issues after it was revealed its residents were evacuated last year. Residents from the 30 loft-style apartments at 19 Gadigal Avenue in Zetland, in Sydney's southwest were evacuated late last year, while City of Sydney staff had inspected the building in February and found it had "extensive and severe water damage", a city spokesman said. [...]
Zetland apartments abandoned in secret evacuation over ‘severe’ defects
10 JULY 2019 An inner Sydney apartment building remains abandoned eight months after its occupants were evacuated over water and fire safety defects, in revelations expected to deliver a fresh blow to confidence in the city's building standards. The emergence of a third residential unit building with severe defects will intensify pressure on the state government to address concerns about building standards. Cracking forced the evacuation of Sydney Olympic Park's [...]
Lawyer Stephen Goddard on the 2DAY Breakfast Show to discuss the Mascot tower drama
4 JULY 2019 Stephen Goddard, OCN - interview starts 20 mins and 45 seconds into the Breakfast Show. > Listen to the full interview at 2DayFM Stephen Goddard
Boycott: Is it time we had an off-the-plan ban?
4 JULY 2019 The advice from Owners Corporation Network spokesman Stephen Goddard could not have been more blunt: Don’t buy apartments off the plan. His actual words in an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney's dirty strata secrets emerge through cracks in Mascot Towers -See post below for full story) were “prudent purchasers cannot buy strata ‘off the plan’ or, given that most defects emerge within a decade of construction, [...]
Mascot Towers incident: Negative stigma could impact unit prices in troubled building
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 [...]
Aussie state government steps in to help stranded Sydney residents after building foundation cracks
3 JULY 2019 SYDNEY, June 24 (Xinhua) -- Residents of Sydney's Mascot Towers, which were evacuated earlier this month due to suspected structural damage, will receive financial support from the New South Wales State Government to cover the costs of temporary accommodation. State government officials said on Sunday that residents of the around 10-year-old building will be able to apply for the costs of daily accommodation for a period up [...]
Minister defends city’s high-rise housing
3 JULY 2019 The Minister for Better Regulation has denied there are widespread problems in the city's high-rise residential housing sector, saying "I don’t believe there is any great cause for alarm for other apartment buildings across Sydney". Announcing an emergency financial assistance package for residents of the beleaguered Mascot Towers block on Sunday, Minister Kevin Anderson said the NSW government would restore "confidence" with "the biggest shake-up of the [...]
Mascot Tower owners crowdfunds to raise $1m
3 JULY 2019 Sydney Mascot Tower owners have started crowdfunding to raise money after an owners' meeting on Thursday elected to raise a special levy of $1.1 million to fix the defective building. The Owners Corporation Network agrees it is time for governments to look at better consumer protections for homebuyers. Strata management also needs another look-in while homebuyers, particularly the growing number of apartment owners, need to continue take [...]
‘No effective oversight’: why the Opal and Mascot Towers cases may be the tip of a very large iceberg
03 JULY 2019 The Mascot Towers crisis is the second seismic shock delivered to the Sydney high-rise residential market in just six months, following the emergency evacuation of residents from the Opal Towers at Homebush on Christmas Eve. The Mascot Towers crisis is the second seismic shock delivered to the Sydney high-rise residential market in just six months, following the emergency evacuation of residents from the Opal Towers at Homebush on [...]
OUR PARTNERS
Premium Partners
Major Partners
