https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-16/ ... s/11214328Owners of apartments in the Mascot Towers development will be left with a hefty bill to repair structural damage as the building is too old to fall under warranty, with property experts calling for better consumer protections.
Residents were forced to evacuate the 10-storey Sydney building on Friday night after major cracks appeared in its beams.
Temporary building props were installed in the carpark earlier this week due to the "rapid deterioration" of cracks within a primary support beam, residents were told.
Under NSW law, building defects are covered under warranty for six years after completion of a development.
Stephen Goddard, spokesman for the Owners Corporation Network — an advocacy group for owners in strata schemes — said owners of apartments in the decade-old Mascot Towers development were no longer covered by the statutory warranty period and would now be left with a hefty bill.
"Consumers have nowhere to go in these sorts of situations, there's nobody for them to sue, there's nowhere for them to turn," Mr Goddard said.
"People have more consumer protection buying a fridge than a million-dollar apartment."
The owners corporation would now pay for the cost of repairs to the building by raising strata levies, he said.
Mr Goddard said 80 per cent of all new apartment buildings were constructed with structural defects, many of which do not appear until the six-year warranty has passed.
"Anybody looking to purchase in a building less than 10 years of age is foolish because the defects will not have yet surfaced," he said.
"Don't buy anything less than 10 years old. You never buy off the plan, it's unsafe to do so," he said, adding that buyers should not assume any modern apartment building had been built to code.
Mr Goddard, who is also a strata lawyer, said the High Court had recently confirmed that developers and builders do not owe owners' corporations any duty of care because owners' corporations do not exist at the time of registration of the plan.
He called on the NSW Parliament to create a statutory duty of care to better protect consumers and said, so far, there had been no political incentive for governments to do so.
"Most of our parliaments are on a sort of junkie hit when it comes to the building industry," he said.
"The more they help the builder build, the more stamp duty they get, the more council and water rates come in.
The structural problems in Mascot come six months after 3,000 residents of the Opal Tower at Olympic Park were evacuated from the building after major movement was detected.
Mr Goddard said the implications for owners in these buildings could be ongoing.
"The building will become toxic, just like Opal, where you won't be able to sell out of it because people know of the structural defects," he said.
"For many years, ever-increasing property prices have 'wallpapered' over the issue.
"We're now seeing owners confronted with the possibility that their investment … may be lower than their outstanding mortgage."
Someone needs to step up and clean out the building industry and protect owners from shonky workmanship.
