Skye Wollongong’s Defects Picked Up by NSW Building Commissioner
@DavidBarwell writes in @DailyTelegraph about a good outcome for these lucky new strata owners thanks to the NSW Building Commissioner @DavidChandler and his team.
But, doesn’t every strata buyer and owner deserve this?
So, here’s a novel idea!
Why doesn’t every developer of a strata building that’s over 3 storeys [since they don’t have HOW insurance coverage] pay NSW Fair Trading $100K to cover the cost of an inspector [think David Chandler clones] to go out and do these kinds of inspections near the end of the building cycle to issue Rectification and/or Prohibition Orders before Occupation Certificates are issued.
In that way someone independent of the developer, builder & strata stakeholders is involved, key defects are identified early, there’s timing & commercial pressure to get the defect fixed, and strata buyers & financiers are not squeezed or screwed into premature purchase settlements.
After all, once there are more than 25 strata apartments, it’s only $2,000 per strata owner to get this kind of protection which is way less than the likely costs of investigations, experts and lawyers to address these defects. And, that’s leaving out all the negative amenity impacts, delays, internal conflicts and stress they will suffer.
At Skye Wollongong that would have worked out at less than $1,00 per strata owner and a bit more than $1,000 per defect: which is a cheap solution. .
It’s just effectively a bit of stakeholder-funded quality assurance for construction since no one appears to be incentivised or punished enough to do it otherwise.
But, it would work and it’s a lot simpler than Dicennial Insurance.
Just saying.
