As most of us are aware, the list is long of things you need to check when buying your own home, or an investment property, to make sure you don’t buy a ‘lemon’. In some states, building construction quality has not been as carefully checked or as high quality as it should have been – you may have seen the news articles over the last couple of years, regarding units in Sydney with design and construction faults, where some people now have virtually worthless apartments due to structural cracks and other structural defects.
There is a new important check for you to make, in assessing either an existing property or when considering a new property; how fire-safe is the cladding? Since the Melbourne Docklands fire in 2014 , and the 2017 Grenfell Towers fire in the UK, there has been a big emphasis world-wide on cladding of multi-level buildings, and how safe it is, particularly with fire. This is good, right? Safer for everyone, to raise the construction and safety standards? Yes, sure, but the question is, who pays for the upgrade to safe buildings? The answer is, not the developers, or the property sales team, or the QA Inspector, or the local Council, or the construction team, or not even in many cases, the various state governments with their underfunded cladding compensation schemes. Yes, it is the property owner who is largely responsible for paying their share of the cladding rectification, either directly or via a Body Corporate.
And we’re not talking peanuts for the fix, either.
In December 2019, ABC News reported two examples in Melbourne, where two property owners bought their respective units in Melbourne, but after purchase received demands from the Local Council to rectify the fire hazard cladding on the outsides of buildings, it described as a fire hazard and a “danger to life”. The owners have been told it needs to be rectified within six months, or the owners will face prosecution. So, on top of the initial purchase price and the on-costs of buying a property, the owners now must find more big bucks for the removal and replacement of the cladding. Quotes for one of the properties in the ABC article ranged from $40,000 to $200,000.
These stories serve as a warning, and a reminder to anyone who is planning to buy a unit or an apartment, that it is very important to make sure (as much as possible) you get confirmation that the building doesn’t have significant structural defects or cladding which is a fire hazard because the potential cost of replacing large amounts of building materials can be immense.
Otherwise, your savings and/or superannuation could take a major hit in your preparation for a comfortable retirement. Not to mention, the hit on your stress levels.
