‘Don’t buy a new apartment’: Shocking warning to home buyers after expert pens a devastating report on the state’s building industry
- Building law expert Bronwyn Weir co-wrote a 2018 report about building codes
- It warned about ‘significant problems’ months before Opal Tower evacuation
- Two major Sydney apartment towers have been cleared out six months apart
- Ms Weir told the ABC should would not buy a brand new apartment in Australia
A building law expert who wrote a damning government report about the construction industry has revealed she would not buy a new apartment.
Lawyer Bronwyn Weir’s report about state building codes last year contained a prophetic warning about new apartments – months before residents were evacuated from a Sydney residential high-rise.
‘It is our considered view that the nature and extent of the problems put to us are significant and concerning,’ she said in the document, co-authored by former senior bureaucrat Peter Shergold.
‘They are likely to undermine public trust in the health and safety of buildings if they are not addressed in a comprehensive manner.’
The Weir-Shergold report for the Building Ministers’ Forum was released in April 2018.
Just eight months later, on Christmas Eve, hundreds of residents were evacuated from the near-new 36-storey Opal Tower at Sydney Olympic Park.
Ms Weir, who has 20 years’ experience advising governments on building regulations, has revealed she would not recommend a brand new apartment.
‘I wouldn’t buy a newly built apartment,’ she told the ABC’s Four Corners program, which aired on Monday night.’
‘No … if I was going to be investing in in an apartment, I’d buy an older one.’
Lawyer Bronwyn Weir’s report about state building codes last year contained a prophetic warning about new apartments – months before residents were evacuated from a Sydney residential high-rise
In less than a year, two Sydney apartment towers have been evacuated.
In June, hundreds of residents were cleared from Mascot Towers, near the airport, after cracks also appeared in the 10-year-old, 10-storey tower in Sydney’s south-east.
A month later, City of Sydney council confirmed residents of 30 loft-style apartments at nearby Zetland had been evacuated.
Ms Weir said the extent of shoddy building work had worsened during the past two decades as ‘hundreds of thousands of apartments’ have been built across Australia.
‘Probably the prevalence of noncompliance has been particularly bad, I would say in the last say 15 to 20 years,’ she told the ABC.
Just eight months later, on Christmas Eve, hundreds of residents were evacuated from the near-new 36-storey Opal Tower at Sydney Olympic Park
‘It’s gotten worse over that period. And that means there’s a lot of existing building stock that has defects in it.’
In late 1997, a first-term Labor government in New South Wales amended the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment Act so private certifiers instead of local council inspectors ensured building work complied with design requirements.
A new private certification scheme came into effect in July 1998, copying a system that had already existed in South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory.
NSW Liberal Premier Gladys Berejiklian has vowed to replace this system but has yet to detail a new model.
Ms Weir’s report, commissioned by the federal Department of Industry, contained 24 recommendations including new laws to govern the conduct of private surveyors.
In June, hundreds of residents were cleared from Mascot Towers, near the airport, after cracks also appeared in the 10-year-old, 10-storey tower in Sydney’s south-east
Ms Weir said the extent of shoddy building work had worsened during the past two decades as ‘hundreds of thousands of apartments’ have been built across Australia (pictured are cracks in Mascot Towers in Sydney’s south-east)