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The Australian arm of an international developer has apologised for defects in a significant number of homes in a rapid growth area south of Wollongong.
Key points:
- Frasers Property Australia is vowing to fix homes in Shell Cove that have a "design fault"
- The company says it has 12 remedial teams in place but will not say how many homes are impacted
- A resident says he is worried there could be more defects "waiting to happen"
The Shell Cove residential community is owned by Shellharbour Council and is being jointly developed with Frasers Property Australia to provide around 3,500 new homes.
In a statement, Frasers said it had "apologised" to customers it built homes for in Shellharbour that have a "design issue", and has committed to fixing them under warranty.
The developer did not reveal how many homes are impacted, but it is understood a common problem is with water proofing that results in leaks into the house.
"The design issue has impacted a significant number of homes specifically the majority of homes with light-weight facades or low-pitched roofs," a statement from the company said.
"We are undertaking comprehensive reviews of each home and all works required will be completed.
"There are 12 dedicated specialist remedial building teams working on the program."
Home owner concerned about 'unknown' defects
Home owner Chris Maude said he was pleased with the work being done on his house but that the sheer amount of building work going on across the suburb had caused significant disruption.
"I had the scaffolding up at the front of my house to rectify a couple of problems early last year, early 2022," he said.
"And even now I have got neighbours across the road that have got scaffolding up, so mid 2023."
"I moved in April 2021 and since then there has been scaffolding on existing houses from that point until now."
Mr Maude said it was easy to tell which houses were impacted even after the work is completed.
"When you look at some of the houses you can actually tell those that have had remediation work and those that haven't just with new painted facade, with replaced weatherboard.
"I would hope that Frasers would do an overarching look at all the properties that have been built in the last five years and look at if there is a common defect or is there a defect just waiting to happen on those properties that haven't been impacted yet."
In its statement, Frasers acknowledged the "program wasn't progressing efficiently enough".
"Inadequate resources were initially dedicated to the program, so we added resources to scale up the pace of works, however this took longer than initially anticipated given the current skill shortages in the construction industry."
Financial pressure on households
Former Shellharbour councillor Peter Moran says he raised the issue of building defects at Shell Cove at a council meeting around five years ago.
"I was contacted by a half a dozen or so residents who had had issues with their properties who were having water come into their properties during heavy or sometimes not so heavy rain events and they were having issues getting the problems rectified," he said.
"I raised the issue with council because council is the owner of the project," he said.
Mr Moran is concerned about the financial pressure it could put on households as interest rates continue to rise.
"Often people are putting all of their assets into one basket, people are really stretching themselves to buy these high end properties in Shell Cove which go for significantly above the area average and finding that they are not fit for purpose."
Mayor calls for action
Shellharbour's mayor Chris Homer said Frasers Property was too slow to act.
"Look it was left a little bit too long," he said.
"I was was very upset as council is the organisation I front, the perception was that it was our accountability, but it wasn't."
"I have been having my advocacy to Frasers, they've come on board and they are doing some strong remedial action right now.
"At the end of the day they are accountable for these defects."
Propertyvalue.com lists the median sale prices for a home in Shell Cove over the last 12 months at $1.3 million well above the national average of $485,000.
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