Buying a 5-10 year old apartment

[aardbat]

We have started inspecting newish apartments, build in the early 2000s, so 5-10 years old. It seems that most of them have lots of cracks, one has what seems to be major water penetration rectification works (7 year old building just coming out of building warranty?)

Are there any pitfalls with regards to building integrity and quality when buying into newish apartments? Any other things which we should be looking out for? Old apartments just seem a lot more solid, for some reason.

Thanks!

 

[DaveM]

If it was built by Meriton, just walk away

 

[aardbat]

Hah. Thanks. I'll look it up. Any other recommended/not recommended builders? or somewhere where a list can be found?

 

[ashalim]

I have this problem with my 8 year old unit in Kogarah. I've had roof leak issues for sometime now, had to get an engineer to come in and really investigate what the root cause was. It turn out to be numerous.

What the engineer told us was because of the drought we had...lots of dodgy builders cut back on lots of water drainage/water proofing in their buildings and got away with it. So when there were lots of heavy rain last year, these cracks n issues started to crop up...costs us quite a bit and the issue still not resolved

 

[DaveM]

Does a 5-10 year old really need their own apartment? That seems a little young to be moving out of home.

 

[CHam]

Does a 5-10 year old really need their own apartment? That seems a little young to be moving out of home.

Kids of today are pretty advanced Dave.

My 8 year old knows more about everything than I do.

 

[travelbug]

There were a lot of builders building in a big rush early 2000 in Sydney to take advantage of the boom. I've seen some terrible building workmanship.
Be careful.

 

[Peter 14.7]

There were a lot of builders building in a big rush early 2000 in Sydney to take advantage of the boom. I've seen some terrible building workmanship.
Be careful.

Ditto and the Gov put the insurance risk to private insurers like HIH now long dead. Noe they dont even cover apartments in NSW at all.

Get a strata report and it should tell you the real news. To save money, find out the strata manager and call them and be nice and they should tell you for no fee.

Ditto avoid Meriton but all can be dodgy.

I use to build apartments, Peter 14.7

 

[saiman]

http://www.propertyobserver.com.au/...lder-apartments-harry-triguboff/2012110157564


...Meriton to sell 700 older units up to 9 yrs old

I wonder why....

 

[Scott No Mates]

You should do thorough DD on these purchases - as pointed out often there is no home warranty insurance to rely upon and it will mean litigation to get things rectified (damn builders know there is no recourse if they declare bankruptcy).

More recently a NSW high court judge decided that there is no privity of contract between body corporate & the builder and that as there is separate legislation the judge would have no further part in determining the matter. So, if the common areas are affected by the defects there is no protection whatsoever.

 

[aardbat]

Hi guys. Thanks; some very helpful comments confirming that units built post 2000 should be treated carefully and separate to those build before... we have identified the specific problems after DD in this particular unit here.