SYDNEY'S troubled Opal Towers and Mascot Towers have been capturing national headlines, but when Greens MLC David Shoebridge announced a parliamentary inquiry into building standards last week, he said there were hundreds, if not thousands, of problem buildings across NSW.
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One such structure, as we reported on Thursday, is the Landmark apartment block at Charlestown.
Mr Shoebridge, who chairs the Legislative Council's public affairs committee, says the Landmark highlights a number of the difficulties facing residents in problematic strata-titled buildings.
The basic reason why apartment owners in the nine-storey Landmark are left footing an expensive repair bill is because residential buildings more than three storeys high are exempt from the mandatory home warranty insurance scheme that is supposed to protect consumers from faults in all residential building work costing more than $20,000, including GST.
There is no obvious reason why someone buying a new house should be protected by a legislated state government insurance scheme, while someone buying a home unit or apartment is not.
Mr Shoebridge says the three-storey exemption was the result of industry lobbying.
The record shows that mandatory home warranty insurance was introduced in the Home Building Act 1989 and that the NSW government - along with its Victorian counterpart - introduced changes in March 2002 that included the three-storey carve-out.
The Landmark, approved for development in 2004, needed no warranty cover.
This meant that when problems arose, the only recourse the residents had was to the developer, who wound up the company concerned - as he was legally entitled to do - once the likely repair bill began to mount.
Developer Peter Durbin has faced criticism for his actions, but previous inquiries have shown that winding up building companies, once a project is complete, is common practice in the industry.
Without insurance, apartment owners are left in a terrible position, forced to pay for someone else's mistakes, and reluctant to speak out in case their property loses value, or proves impossible to sell.
To stop this unfairness, the insurance scheme needs amending to cover apartment owners. It should also pay for the Landmark, and other apartment repairs.
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