Sadly, there's no quick fix

Apartment owners can face a hefty bill when high-rise buildings reveal their defects.

- Pam Walkley

Chances are if you bought a high-rise apartment in recent years you’ve bought a property with defects. Some would be much more significant than others: think the recent Opal Tower cracking fiasco in Sydney and the Lacrosse apartment building in Melbourne, which experienced a cladding fire in 2014.

Research conducted by the UNSW City Futures Research Centre in 2012 found that 72% of apartment blocks in NSW had defects, as reported by owners. For newer units it’s even worse, with 85% of apartments built since 2000 having defects.

As Australia’s apartment construction boom raged – in Sydney, for example, there’s been a fourfold increase in high-rise apartments in the past 10 years – standards have been compromised in favour of keeping construction costs low, delivering developers bigger profits.

So what rights do you have if you’ve bought an apartment that turns out to be a lemon? Not a lot is the short answer.

In NSW, consumer protections were watered down in 2012, when the warranty period for major defects was reduced from seven to six years. It’s just two years for other defects.