A strata lawyer has issued a damning warning in the wake of the Mascot Towers fiasco explaining why buyers should never purchase off the plan.
Solicitor Stephen Goddard claims that 80 per cent of new flats contain structural defects and usually won’t appear until after the warranty has expired.
He said new residential strata schemes have been plagued with building defects for 20 years and no one should buy off the plan because then residents and tenants won’t have anyone to sue due to the warranty expiring.
Residents of 131 apartments in Mascot Towers, inner-south Sydney, were evacuated after concerns were raised about the structural integrity of their building on Friday evening
Cracks in the basement of the decade-old building had widened in the lead up to the last minute evacuation
‘Don’t buy anything less than ten years old. You never buy off the plan, it’s unsafe to do so,’ he told ABC.
‘Anybody looking to purchase in a building less than ten years of age is foolish because the defects will not have yet surfaced.’
‘Even if the fault is discovered within the warranty period, the builder/developer can be hard to find. They often disappear to the bottom of the harbour,’ he wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Strata solicitor Stephen Goddard said residents and tenants have no one to sue now that they’re no longer covered under warranty
Residents of 131 apartments in the Mascot Towers high rise in Sydney’s inner south were evacuated on Friday evening after cracks and movement were detected.
The building is 11-years-old, meaning the residents will have to pay for repairs, as New South Wales law states defects are only covered under warranty for six years.
Mr Goddard said the government is decreasing the amount of protection consumers have.
‘Statutory warranties have decreased as has access to home building insurance,’ he wrote.
‘We’re now seeing owners confronted with the possibility that their investment … may be lower than their outstanding mortgage.
‘Keeping silent and fixing the defects with special levies had the benefit of enabling owners to resell without a capital loss.
‘This conspiracy of silence has helped successive governments focus upon the “procurement of housing stock” at the expense of consumer protection.’
The cracks at Mascot Tower followed the evacuation of Opal Tower (pictured) in Sydney Olympic Park last Christmas Eve after residents heard ‘cracking noises’
The cracks at Mascot Tower followed the evacuation of Opal Tower in Sydney Olympic Park last Christmas Eve after residents heard ‘cracking noises’.
Property consultant Edwin Almedia suggested these cases were not coincidences but a reflection of a larger problem.
‘The issue is broader (than Opal and Mascot) and not only contained to high-rise development,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘Low-set and basically new construction has a grey cloud over it – low quality, toxins, bad ventilation and very low-quality imported materials used.
‘More and more blocks will be evacuated and a lot should already have been, given the levels of mould and water penetration you find in a lot of apartment blocks, not to mention emergency sprinkler systems not working.’
Cracks seen in the Opal Tower building in Sydney Olympic Park last year
Mr Almedia said there were three main problems: the deregulation of building processes, using land not suitable for high-rise apartments and the lack of builders’ liability.
At Mascot and Opal Towers the ‘list goes on’ with foundation issues, deterioration of the sub-basement areas, excavation around it, contamination deteriorating the foundations and low quality concrete, he said.
‘More at risk, one reason is the over-building in adjoining land,’ he said.
Mr Almedia recommended greater accountability to tackle the problems in future.
‘Make builders and developers jointly accountable for at least seven years and hold back no less than 10 per cent of the value of the end sale in a Trust Account to be supervised/managed by a Government body,’ he said.
‘Accountability and liability was deteriorated with Private Certification and changes in 2014-2015.’
Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters on Sunday that the NSW Government ‘will hold everybody to account’ following the debacle.
‘There was some speculation it could have been from things that happened in the near vicinity but we need to find out the cause before we know how to act,’ she said.
Ms Berejiklian was asked if her government would help the residents during their investigations and she responded: ‘We’re getting to the bottom of what happened’.
‘The NSW government will hold everybody to account, that’s our role,’ she said.