The same dispute, from three different positions
A defect claim is one thing to the owner who has to live with it, another to the builder who has to answer it, and another again to an owners corporation acting for everybody in the building. These pages take each in turn.
General information, not legal advice. This page sets out how the law generally applies. It does not take account of your circumstances, and you should get advice about your own situation before acting on it. The official sources this page is written from are listed on it; where they differ from anything here, they are the authority.
The law is the same whichever side you are on. What differs is which statute helps you, what you have to prove, what you can be made to do, and how much time you have — and those differences are large enough that general advice written for one side is close to useless to the other.
Each page below is written from that position: what the law gives you, what it asks of you, and what usually decides the outcome.
By position
Home owners
The statutory warranties that apply whether or not your contract mentions them, the warranty periods and when they start running, home building compensation cover, and what to do when a builder stops answering.
Builders and subcontractors
Payment claims and schedules and the deadlines that decide them, responding to a defect allegation, variation and delay claims, and licensing and contract requirements.
Owners corporations
Common property defects, who has standing to bring a claim, the duty of care under the Design and Building Practitioners Act, and how a decision to act is properly made under the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW).
If a date is running
Not sure which one you are?
Owner-builders, developers and strata committee members each sit across more than one of these. Say what your position is and we will tell you which rules apply to it.