Residential Focus: Part 1 - Construction defects in high rise residential projects

The high stakes of high rise

As land in our cities gets scarcer the trend towards high-rise living is unlikely to reverse. And with this come some unique challenges, as we have seen recently with the Opal Tower in Sydney.

Over the past 25 years, the number of occupied apartments in Australia has increased by 78 per cent to 1,214,372 dwellings. By 2016, 38 per cent of all occupied apartments were found to be contained within blocks that were four or more storeys in height, whereas in 1996, less than one in five shared this characteristic. 

In any construction there are defects, but in large residential developments defects are frequently replicated across lots, which can mean significant rectification costs. The most common complaints with new apartments concern waterproofing, with roofs, balconies, wet areas and planter boxes featuring heavily. Where structural failure is suggested, such as in the Opal Tower, the magnitude arises not from replication but from