![]() The owners lost their first case in the NSW Supreme Court in 2012, won on appeal in 2013 and then lost in the High Court in 2014 when that court found the builder owed the owners no duty of care over defects after the six-year period had already ended. Residents of the 22-storey tower built in 1998 sued builder Brookfield Multiplex for about $10 million a decade after completion for defects in the building including defective external render, corroding metal cowlings on fire services shutters and a spa on level 1 that leaked into the function rooms. "But they are left by a broken system to fend for themselves." ![]() "This is a David & Goliath fight no owner expects, or should be expected, to enter into," says Owners Corporation Network executive officer Karen Stiles. The Opal Tower in the Sydney Olympic Park in Sydney was evacuated on Christmas eve. The high-profile Opal failure, which has dominated news headlines since Christmas, reveals shortcomings in Australian construction that show the vulnerability of builders and subcontractors who create these buildings as well as the lack of protections for the consumers who buy them. A 2012 report by UNSW's City Futures Research Centre found that 85 per cent of strata title owners in NSW said there were defects in the construction of their building. While developers argue that the structural failures that triggered cracks in precast concrete panels in the Sydney Olympic Park are an isolated occurrence, building defects are all too common in Australian construction. How unique is Sydney's Opal Tower crisis? The evacuation of all residents is unusual – and an occurrence probably not seen in Sydney since a gas explosion on the 29th floor of a residential tower at Bondi Junction's Eastgate complex in 2009.īut building defects aren't unusual.
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