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Our building is not yet one year old. I think it is reasonable to expect that there are faults, and expect for them to get fixed.
However, what has started to concern me is that some of the faults we are seeing look like they may be replicated in multiple units, possibly as a result of poor tradesmen and insufficient or bad project management.
Some people in the committee have talked about not bringing in a consulting engineer/building inspector until near the end of the warranty period. I am of the view that we need to get a building inspector on board now so that the where relevant, the developer is held to account, and where it is not their responsibility, owners can understand what they are responsible for. Some of the faults have the potential to be serious – e.g. water ingress. Some of them require us to understand what compliance should have taken place during installation: e.g. A/C units that have been installed with damaged ducting, and inability to get a filters to clean them; fly-wire screens that can’t be removed without taking out the window winder (looks like wring size fly-wire screens to me). In these cases is there a compliance requirement, or is the installation done based on common sense?
More importantly, does anyone have experience with the timing of hiring an independent consultant building inspector ?
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While it is reasonable to allow a period for the building to “settle” and allow major defects to make themselves apparent, minor, non structural defects such as those you have described only have a two-year window for claims so you really need to get on to them by the end of the first year following completion.
As for the major or structural defects, yours would not be the first building to have discovered hidden defects when the more obvious ones were being repaired.
Right now there is a building at Wentworth Point, nearing the end of its defects window, where the removal of flammable cladding has revealed previously unseen major defects. They have been lucky that it has all been caught in time.
I worry about committee members who want to delay defects inspections. I understand that the first year of a building’s life can be overwhelming, without even considering defects. However, the average turnover period for “flipping” apartments is seven years and you’d have to hope your neighbours aren’t wanting to sell before defects are identified and dealt with.
The longer you leave it, the harder it will be to get resolved. Your developer could be out of business in five years. What are you going to do about defects then? If you haven’t appointed s defects inspector by the second year of a building’s life, IMHO then you are already on a slippery slope that could lead to heartbreak and expensive litigation.
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