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Building defects lead to calls for purchaser protection
With four recently built Sydney buildings now ghost towns due to dangerous defects, the Strata Community Association (NSW) has called for mass reforms to help property owners recover from potential losses.
Building defects lead to calls for purchaser protection
With four recently built Sydney buildings now ghost towns due to dangerous defects, the Strata Community Association (NSW) has called for mass reforms to help property owners recover from potential losses.
The association outlined that it has called for legislation that would closely reflect that put in place after Victoria’s cladding crisis, where $600 million was designated by the state government for the removal of highly flammable cladding from newly built buildings.
In calling for mass funding to fix damages in a number of recently built NSW buildings, the state’s Strata Community Association president, Chris Duggan, said the government needs to help all investors and not just residents in bigger cases.
“The NSW government moved quickly to support the residents of Mascot Towers, but we all know now that this is just the tip of the iceberg,” he stated, considering that iceberg to be impacting on property owner confidence.
Impact on investors
According to Mr Duggan, the federal government should be working with state legislators on the issue, as the problems facing investors in NSW could be replicated Australia-wide.
While the NSW government moved quickly on Mascot Towers, it is now obvious that the building and construction integrity problem requires a whole of government strategic response that is properly funded, the Strata Community Association outlined.
He noted that some Mascot Towers residents had been offered $10,000 to purchase their million-dollar apartments, adding that “no resident in NSW should have to suffer that sort of disgraceful proposition”.
Call to action
Working on behalf of 2 million members, the Strata Community Association said it has called for government intervention to stop such issues from continuing.
Mr Duggan highlighted that NSW still has “hundreds of kilometres of poor-quality electrical cabling that poses a fire risk” that can’t be tracked down.
He also said that the government is still allowing poor quality Chinese-made glass panels to come into this country that can explode under stress.
As a result, Mr Duggan said insurance premiums are on the rise.
He said that this isn’t the only impact that has arisen out of the new building drama, with the private certifiers issue off the back of flammable cladding having brought “the construction industry to its knees”.
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