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Construction issues resolution in Sydney - Part 11



Yet another important milestone in the long process of fixing the building defects in the strata block - Fair Trading came out for second inspection last Wednesday 30/07/2014.

New defects and old defects that were not yet fixed have been on the list.
Major defect types are:

- Water leakage in bathrooms/showers into bedrooms in 100% of reported units;
- Cheap material used for tiling in bathrooms/showers that last only for 6 months and then require re-sealing;
- Flooring issues - timber/bamboo laid out incorrectly, color mismatch;
- Water leakage from the outside into units;
- Efflorescence in tiling work in courtyards and pathways;
- Negligent manner of work and absence of quality material and control of work - many defects have been somehow addressed by the sub-contractors sent by the builder, but without proper result.

Some units have got tenants so it was not easy to organise for an inspection for them. Here I'd suggest to identify and report all the defects before you rent out the unit - if possible, as some defects are hard to see straight away.

There is also other surprise - Fair Trading takes to account that the builder has not finished rectifying their previous order items, but the only thing they can do is to issue a non-compliance order and then the owner or owners corporation should take it to tribunal from there.
It seems like only a few people really take it to the tribunal that's why builders are very slow and use any opportunity to delay their work.
This should be addressed somehow by the legislation.

More and more people choose strata living, because they can't afford a separate property. However builders may use this nature of strata living to do their job negligently and even when people paid that much for a property they have to spend years trying to rectify issues that should have been done within 6 or 12 months as per contract!

Anyway the owners corporation in our case are now waiting for the Fair Trading to come back with a new rectification order for all defective units and take it from there.

2 years and 7 months in the process!

Other posts from this story.

Also have a look at my post regarding strata living and what to look at before and when you buy a strata unit.
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