It's another view about the problem and well worth considering.
Greg Ellevsen wrote:
Hi Frank,
Thanks for posting your blog article. Good points made all round and you clearly resonate the frustration felt by home unit owners.
I have witnessed these frustrations in several buildings and in those cases the owners were right in what they were asking to be repaired under warranty. I have also been privy to other cases where an "expert" building consultant has prepared an enormous list of "defects" that amounts to a small percentage of valid warranty defect issues among a whole lot of other invalid ones.
Reports of this kind are common and send a sometimes over alarming message to, and unduly raise the expectations of, owners and lawyers. This ends up being unhelpful to the process of resolution of defects when a lawyer has a mountain of issues to start with, many of which are whittled down in the fullness of time when the real issues are eventually filtered from the rest.
Rather than limit the legal ground for lawyers to use for warranty claims, a more sensible approach to defect reporting by overzealous building consultants would help. There seem to be as many defect report formats as there are defect reporting building consultants. Standardization only comes into play if these progress to a Scotts Schedule for submission to the Tribunal.
I think it would also help if building consultants had to conform to a standardized form of report where the layout is the same from one to another and where valid warranty defects are also categorised and referenced against the relevent Australian Standard or BCA paragraph, it has breached. This would encourage the building consultant to be more precise in reporting and less sensational in the presentation of their findings to owners who eagerly hang on their every word.
So this brings me to compliance- Inspection and Certification. I perceive a HUGE misunderstanding among the general public and even the strata profession as to what used to happen (say pre 2005 or even pre 2000 Private Certifier introduction) and what is required now. Really, there ain't much difference! There is no point in anyone getting their rocks off over what seems to be perceived as a substandard job the current private certifier does compared to the former statutory role of local government council building inspectors. Sure there were private certifiers being corrupted in the initial few years however that was stamped out post 2005. My experience is that private certifiers do a more thorough job than council inspectors. One crucial point needs to be understood- a certifier does carry out a very small number of compliance inspections during a job, however- a certifier is NOT a quality control inspector. It is not their role and they shouldn't be expected to have had control of the quality of the work carried out.
So what's wrong with the system? Far be it from me to claim to know all the answers but I'd like to contribute the following ideas;
1) The builder carries the can for everyones mistakes and this has bred a culture of irresponsibility among some trade contractors. A builder is liable under the Home Building Act 1989 for all of the work in the building, however not one single trade subcontractor is!! If a subcontractor does the wrong thing, he can't be hunted down by statute of law by home owners through the Home Building Act. He has no statutory warranty to the home owner. He has no statutory warranty to the builder under the Home Building Act. Sure he might do part of the work, but he is not liable under the Home Building Act to have performed it properly. The only way a builder can draw a subcontractor back is through contract law, and that is usually limited by a defects liability period of one year. To do better than that a builder almost needs to be a lawyer himself. The bar needs to be raised such that every single trade contractor, whether builder or subcontractor, whether contracted to home owner, to developer or to builder, should be held accountable for the quality of their work by statute of law under the Home Building Act the same way that builders are held accountable now. So- a change to the law to accommodate that is required.
2) Trade contractor continued education is very poor. Rules and standards and methods are changing all the time and they are not up to speed. Other than licensed builders and licensed pool builders, licensed trade contractors are not required to accrue CPD points to renew their license every year. When CPD's were introduced for builders (over 10 years ago I think), Fair Trading gave all other licenced contractors another year before they would be required to accrue CPD's. They later decided that it wasn't enough time so they extended it for another yer and then another. It is now seemingly not even on the agenda of Fair Trading at all. What a croc. All trade contractors should be forced to earn CPD's an update their knowledge before they are licenced every year. It can only help- a lot.
3) The skills shortage we keep hearing about has led government to ease the way for people to qualify in a trade. No longer does one need to do an apprenticeship. Mostly exploited by older workers and new Australians, a trade qualification can now be earned by evidence of prior knowledge and experience and by filling skill gaps with some study. My view is that some of the people who are charged with the privellige of assessing prior knowledge and experience have themselves entered the industry and become licenced without doing an apprenticeship. Some of them are not skilled tradesmen themselves and yet they qualify others in their trade. The whole concept needs an overhaul as we are getting a saturation of reduced skills in trades in the building industry.
That's it from me for now Frank. I wanted to post this as a comment in your message so others could read it but it is too long.
I really enjoy reading your posts.
Regards Greg
Thanks Greg.
Francesco ...
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