In all the legislation brought in to protect apartment buyers from dodgy developers who build sub-standard unit blocks, lower-rise schemes have slipped through the net.

And given the spread of “Goldilocks” projects – where low-rise blocks are reluctantly approved in areas where they don’t want any apartments at all – this could have a profound effect on apartment owners’ rights and, crucially, their ability to rectify defects.

The key to all this is hidden in the various states’ strata laws which have similar provisions, as they’re all related to the National Construction Code.

In NSW, for instance, Part 11 of the Strata Schemes Management Act, deals with developers obligations on defects, and there’s a get-out clause: “This Part does not apply to building work if the work is subject to the requirement to obtain insurance under Part 6 of the Home Building Act 1989.”

The regulations are complicated, and you have to reverse into the exemption. But if your apartment block is three storeys high or lower, your developers need to have Home Building Warranty Insurance and, as a result, the protections in Part 11 of the SSMA don’t apply.

Okay, you say, but you have insurance which is more than most high-rises have. Hmmm. The Home Building Warranty only kicks in if the developer goes bust, disappears or dies – otherwise you have to fight them to get what you’ve paid for.

And that could be more of a struggle than it should be. Among other things, in buildings three storeys or lower, developers sidestep the law that requires them to appoint an independent building inspector and pay for their reports.

It also means that the developers can vote on matters related to defect rectification, which they can’t do on high-rise blocks.

So, in effect, the developer of a large (but not high) apartment block can stymie attempts to identify defects, push the costs for doing so back on to the owners, and generally make life difficult for purchasers who are just trying to get what they paid for.

And if you think this is an unlikely scenario, I know a two-storey development with about 70 apartments, a massive underground car park the size of a football field and 16 (yes, 16) elevators. Owners are currently in the midst of a fight over grossly underestimated original levies – thank you, Netstrata – and the cost of pursuing building defects.

Think about it.  You could have a development of 100 two-storey townhouses with as much building work in it as a 25-storey block, and you would only have the same defects protections as a duplex or villa.

It’s time the state governments revised these regulations to reflect the scope of the developments rather merely their height.  This is one area of life where size really IS important.

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