Pub­li­ca­tions

Feb 10, 2023

Shift­ing the dial on build­ing defects lia­bil­i­ty – a greater risk for com­pa­ny direc­tors and devel­op­ers under recent leg­isla­tive reform

Under the Home Build­ing Act 1989, claimants in defec­tive build­ing cas­es against cor­po­rate builders and/​or cor­po­rate devel­op­ers may hit a road­block in the case of ulti­mate insol­ven­cy of those par­ties even if the claims are suc­cess­ful and rec­ti­fi­ca­tion or dam­ages orders are made in respect of the defects.  Has this now changed…

Jul 25, 2022

Reme­di­al Works Are Dif­fer­ent | NSW Con­struc­tion Reform

The real­i­ty of the NSW Con­struc­tion reform for the reme­di­al industry Reme­di­al is an inte­gral part of the con­struc­tion industry. Twelve months down the road, after the com­mence­ment of new design com­pli­ance require­ments under the Design and Build­ing Prac­ti­tion­ers Act 2020 (DBPA) and the accom­pa­ny­ing reg­u­la­tions (DBPR) on 1 July 2021, the reme­di­al…

Jun 17, 2022

The evo­lu­tion of a legal team, intro­duc­ing Swaab’s team ser­vic­ing the prop­er­ty industry

The pace of trans­for­ma­tion, increased vol­ume and com­plex­i­ty of projects has con­tin­ued unabat­ed with­in the prop­er­ty sec­tor. As one of the fir­m’s fastest grow­ing teams, our team ser­vic­ing the prop­er­ty indus­try has seen a grow­ing demand over the past 24-months across the full spec­trum of prop­er­ty services. Diver­si­fi­ca­tion and the intro­duc­tion of…

Sep 3, 2021

Reme­di­al Works in stra­ta schemes – were they near­ly forgotten?

We are all aware of the push by the NSW Gov­ern­ment to ​‘restore con­sumer con­fi­dence’ in the NSW Con­struc­tion Indus­try and the need to tack­le the issue of seri­ous defects being expe­ri­enced by many unit own­ers through­out NSW. Whilst the major­i­ty of build­ing and design prac­ti­tion­ers out there are slow­ly adapt­ing…

Aug 2, 2021

NSW Con­struc­tion Indus­try Shut Down – Par­tial re-open­ing as of 31 July 2021

On Wednes­day 28 July 2021, the NSW Pre­mier took steps to re-open cer­tain con­struc­tion sites in parts of Greater Syd­ney fol­low­ing the ear­li­er con­struc­tion indus­try shut down orders which came into effect on 17 July 2021. Amend­ments have been made by the Pub­lic Health (COVID-19 Tem­po­rary Move­ment and Gath­er­ing Restric­tions) Amend­ment…

Jul 21, 2021

Deal­ing with the NSW Con­struc­tion Indus­try shut down — man­ag­ing exist­ing works

On 17 July 2021, the NSW Gov­ern­ment amend­ed the Pub­lic Health (Covid-19 Tem­po­rary Move­ment and Gath­er­ing Restric­tions) Order 2021 (the Orders) to deal with the ongo­ing out­break of the Covid-19 Delta vari­ant in the Greater Syd­ney area. The net impact of the inser­tion of claus­es 22(4A) and 24AB is that the…

Feb 22, 2021

Helen Kowal’s arti­cle pub­lished in Source​able​.net | Final­ly, Bet­ter Build­ing Prac­tices are Being Enforced

Back in 2019, frus­trat­ed in my pro­fes­sion as to how many build­ing defects appear in mul­ti-storey res­i­den­tial build­ings short­ly after con­struc­tion lead­ing to mul­ti-mil­lions of dol­lars being spent on reme­di­al repairs, I spent the year inter­view­ing expert build­ing con­sul­tants as to their views on the state of play in con­struc­tion and…

Nov 26, 2020

Our most pop­u­lar arti­cles pub­lished dur­ing 2020

We are almost at the end of 2020, and with the end of a year comes the oppor­tu­ni­ty to reflect on our most pop­u­lar arti­cles pub­lished dur­ing the year: 1. COVID-19 Ten­an­cy Update by Mary Digiglio & Tony D’Agosti­no | Prop­er­ty, Plan­ning & Projects | 24 Sep­tem­ber 2020 2. COVID-19 | Redun­dan­cy pay­ments dur­ing the…

Sep 1, 2020

Can we build bet­ter build­ings in NSW?

The con­struc­tion indus­try in New South Wales is in cri­sis and has been at an impasse for a pro­longed peri­od of time. The ques­tion as to why we have so many build­ing defects, par­tic­u­lar­ly in mul­ti-storey res­i­den­tial apart­ment build­ings, was being asked long before the Opal and Mas­cot tow­er dis­as­ters and…

Aug 31, 2020

NSW Con­struc­tion Indus­try Reform

The NSW Build­ing Com­mis­sion­er, David Chan­dler OAM, is at the ready with ​‘boots on the ground’, to ​‘rid the indus­try of dan­ger­ous builders, devel­op­ers and cer­ti­fiers’ and improve con­sumer con­fi­dence in the buy­ing of res­i­den­tial apart­ments in NSW with the com­mence­ment on 1 Sep­tem­ber 2020 of the Res­i­den­tial Apart­ment Build­ings (Com­pli­ance…