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Jonathan Egudo has spent 10 years trying to get the Tomazos Group, which built the Darwin CBD Kube seven-storey building in 2014, to fix the leak in the roof which floods his top floor apartment every wet season.
"Four different times over four years they went up on the roof and said they had resolved the issue and hadn't, and then it kept flooding again every time," he said.
Mr Egudo pays rent on another property to live in, plus the $700,000 mortgage on the Kube apartment he bought off the plan, which he now can't sell or let.
He engaged a consultant engineer and mould experts to investigate in 2018 and 2019.
The engineer found water leaks coming in through the roof each year keep damaging the apartment's hall, kitchen, two bedrooms and bathroom.
The apartment bedroom ceiling has partly collapsed, cabinets and floors are water damaged, and black mould coats ceilings.
"Basically they said that the air quality in there was such poor quality that it was uninhabitable," Mr Egudo said.
He has been shocked the NT government's Building Advisory Service regulator can't force the builder to fix the defects.
It told him in a letter last year it could not prosecute despite "sufficient evidence … the practitioner has breached … the (Building) Act" by failing to install an anti-leak device.
The regulator said during its investigation that the two-year period in which a prosecution could take place had run out, and there was "a lack of evidence" to support legal action.
"They have taken over two and a half years to complete their investigation, and then somehow they found that there was nothing that they could actually do," Mr Egudo said.
Mr Egudo found he could not claim under the NT government's residential building insurance schemes either.
The Master Builders Fidelity Fund only covers home owners if their builder has died, disappeared or gone bust.
The NT Justice Department Residential Building Cover Scheme only covers home owners' problems up to $100,000, after which they have to go to the NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NTCAT) to try to get compensation.
Mr Egudo has now launched expensive Supreme Court action against the builder to try to get compensation.
"It's something that's always hanging over my head, I don't have any financial certainty," he said.
Johnston houses to be demolished
In the Palmerston suburb of Johnston, 16 houses the NT government commissioned from the Tomazos Group for charity Venture Housing in 2015 are going to be demolished after they started to wobble and crack four years later.
"It was about 2020 when we took out all the tenants because they were considered no longer safe," Venture Housing's chairman Allan McGill said.
The regulator decided this year it couldn't prosecute the Tomazos Group because it had been investigating the defect allegations for over four years.
"It's frustrating it took them a long time to make any final decisions and the end result was that time for taking action against the builder had expired," Mr McGill said.
Venture Housing found it couldn't claim under the NT government's insurance schemes, so the charity is negotiating with the government for direct compensation.
The Tomazos Group declined an interview.
Bellamack housing owners facing expensive court action
In another Palmerston suburb, Bellamack, people living in five disintegrating houses haven't been able to get the building regulator to help them get repairs or compensation over the past 10 years.
The regulator found the NT government-backed development wouldn't withstand a cyclone.
Most of the householders couldn't talk publicly because they work for government agencies.
Independent MLA Mark Turner, whose electorate covers Bellamack, said the regulator should have "done something" as soon as it became aware of the issue.
"There are positive obligations under the legislation that they should have acted, and they failed to do it," he said.
"It's a complete failure of government, at every possible level."
The owners were forced to go to NTCAT themselves.
The tribunal ordered the builder George Milatos to pay compensation, but Mr Milatos is now appealing that in the Supreme Court.
Builder accuses regulator of inexperience
Mr Milatos has denied his work was defective.
"There is no doubt that I've been made the fall guy here," he said.
"You can only judge the builder if he built it as per the approved drawings.
"For example, I can't be judged for what might be perceived that I could have used thicker columns instead of thinner columns, because if the drawings tell me to use this size, I must use that size."
He thinks the regulator failed to hold the developer Bellamack Pty Ltd, which picked the housing design, accountable.
Bellamack Pty Ltd didn't respond to interview requests.
Mr Milatos pointed out the NT government decided to change the system in which private industry certifiers check buildings at every stage, rather than government officials, in 1993.
He has accused the regulator of not retaining enough expertise to regulate that.
"You need to have architects, you need to have engineers, in your staff, who can cross-check the work of the people who produce the documents," he said.
'We're destroying consumers'
Builders Collective of Australia president Phil Dwyer has been lobbying the NT government to toughen the NT's regulation and insurance regime to better protect consumer since 2014.
"It's a broken system and it just doesn't work," he said.
"We need to protect consumers, not destroy them, and that's what we're doing."
The Building Advisory Service didn't respond to interview requests.
'We won't set a nasty precedent'
Infrastructure Minister Joel Bowden said he thought the NT's building standards were mostly good, following changes requiring residential and commercial builders to be registered in 2006 and 2024.
Labor isn't planning further changes if it wins the NT election in August.
"There are legal avenues that anyone can take, at the Kube, or other buildings that they can take to rectify a situation in the build," he said.
"What this government is not going to do is set a nasty precedent where we're stepping in all the time."
Mr Dwyer said that astounded him.
"For any government minister to suggest that a consumer should take civil action, when we have a consumer protection regime, that's a just a disgrace and out of order completely," he said.
CLP leader Lia Finnochiaro would not commit to any changes either, instead saying the party would start to address "a large mess in every corner of government" if it wins the election.
Mr Egudo said he wouldn't advise anyone buy a new building or off the plan in the NT unless the regulation system changed.
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