Residents of unsafe new homes call on both sides of politics to reform NT building standards
People who've unwittingly bought defective unsafe new homes, and some builders, are calling on both sides of Northern Territory politics to commit to reforming the NT's building regulation regime before this month's election. They're also lobbying for a commitment to change the government's residential building insurance schemes, which often don't cover major defects. But neither Labor nor the Country Liberal opposition are offering reforms.
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00:00Jonathan Agudo has spent a decade trying to get the builder of the Durban City Cube apartment
00:08block, Tomasos Group, to stop water leaking into his top floor property.
00:14Unsuccessfully on four different times over four years they went up on the roof and said
00:18that they had resolved the issue and hadn't.
00:21Jonathan now lives in Melbourne for work. He's still paying a $700,000 mortgage on the
00:26Durban property that he can't sell or rent.
00:31He's engaged his own engineer and toxic mould expert to assess the damage.
00:36I can see an active leak above us still in the air conditioning pipes.
00:41Even to come in here to look at the damage we have to wear masks like this because of
00:45the risk the mould poses to our health.
00:47Basically they said the air quality in there was of such poor quality that it was uninhabitable.
00:54He's astounded the NT Government's Building Advisory Service regulator hasn't forced
00:59the builder to fix the defects.
01:01In a letter sent last year, the regulator said despite sufficient evidence showing the
01:07practitioner breached the Building Act by failing to install an anti-leak device, it
01:12wouldn't prosecute the builder, saying time had run out and there was a lack of sufficient
01:18evidence to support it.
01:19Somehow they found that there was nothing that they could actually do.
01:24Jonathan Agudu has no claim under the NT Government's building insurance schemes either. He's now
01:30launched expensive Supreme Court action against the builder to try to get compensation.
01:36I don't have any financial certainty going forward.
01:41In the Palmerston suburb of Johnson, 16 properties also built by the Tomazos group will have
01:47to be demolished because of defects. They were built under an affordable housing deal
01:52between the NT Government and Charity Venture Housing in 2015.
01:56We took out all the tenants because they were considered no longer safe.
02:00After investigating since 2019, the regulator this year decided it couldn't prosecute the
02:06Tomazos group.
02:07The end result was that the time for taking action against the builder had expired.
02:13The NT Government's insurance schemes also wouldn't pay out, leaving the charity to negotiate
02:19with the government for direct compensation.
02:22Tomazos group declined an interview.
02:27In the Palmerston suburb of Bellarmack, local member Mark Turner has spent a decade lobbying
02:32for a group of owners left with defective homes. The government has found the wobbling,
02:37cracking buildings wouldn't withstand a cyclone.
02:40They're risking life and limb every time they walk up the stairs. There is positive obligations
02:45under the legislation that they should have acted and they've failed to do it.
02:50The owners were forced to go to the NT's civil tribunal themselves.
02:55It's a complete failure of government, Jane, at every possible level that we have.
03:00The tribunal ordered the builder to pay compensation. He's now appealing that in the Supreme Court.
03:07You can only judge the builder if you build it as per the approved orders.
03:11He thinks the government needs to have stronger checks and balances.
03:15You need to have architects and you need to have engineers in your staff who can cross-check
03:20the work of the people who produce the documents.
03:24Other builders also want the NT's regulation and insurance regimes toughened.
03:30It's a broken system and it just doesn't work.
03:33The Labor government thinks building standards are mostly good and isn't planning changes.
03:39What this government is not going to do is set a nasty precedent where we're stepping
03:42in all the time.
03:43There are legal avenues that anyone can take, the Kew building for example, or other buildings
03:48that they can take to rectify a situation in the building.
03:51For any government minister to suggest that a consumer should take civil action when we
03:59have a consumer protection regime, that's just a disgrace. We need to protect consumers,
04:05not destroy them and that's exactly what we're doing.
04:09The country Liberal party also isn't promising changes if it wins government.