cladding

17 APRIL 2019 Owners, tenants and industry lobby grops are calling for the NSW government to step up efforts to resolve tenancy chaos at Sydney's troubled Opal Tower. The government, which also owns more than 40 apartments in the tower, should take a bigger lead in clarifying tenancy issues both as a stakeholder and as a statutory body instead of relying on Fair Trading NSW and the NSW Civil & Administrative [...]

12 MARCH 2019 Residents at high risk from potentially deadly flammable cladding are being denied information about what they should do to make their buildings safe, consumer advocates claim. Instead, say apartment residents, they are being threatened with huge fines for doing nothing, while owners in some blocks have been told it could cost more than $50,000 per unit to fix the problem. “This decision is bewildering,” says Phil Gall, the [...]

6 MARCH 2019 The Builders Collective of Australia, has called for a royal commission into the national industry in the wake of combustible cladding on residential towers and cracked concrete in Sydney's newly completed Opal Tower, citing failures within Australia’s residential construction sector.” Stephen Goddard, solicitor and spokesperson for owner advocacy group Owners Corporation Network of Australia, said he backed a royal commission but acknowledged new home buyers had been the [...]

9 JANUARY 2019 Sydney’s Opal Tower has dominated headlines after cracks appeared along a concrete wall in the 38-storey Homebush building in Olympic Park on Christmas Eve. Building defects aren’t unusual in Australian construction, but what the crumbling Opal Tower highlights is the vulnerability of builders and subcontractors of defective buildings and the lack of protections for consumers who buy them. "This is a David-and-Goliath fight no owner expects, or should [...]

04 JANUARY 2019 Residents of Opal Tower heard the unwelcome news on Friday that the NSW government-appointed engineers needed more time before they would approve any repair – and hence a return – to the building. In a statement referring "design and construction issues that require further investigation", engineers Mark Hoffman and John Carter said it could take another week before they were in a position to say more. It's tough [...]