Florida’s condo catastrophe<\/a><\/p>\nTheories are emerging about how a Florida apartment building collapsed.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think we’re at that [point] at the moment, but I’ve seen a number of buildings \u2026 that if [issues aren’t] rectified completely, it could go that way,” Mr Brears said.<\/p>\n
“That building in Florida was 40 years old. We don’t have many apartment buildings that are that age, but we have some that are 20, 25 [years old], and we have some that have significant issues that need to be addressed.”<\/p>\n
Water ingress the main issue<\/p>\n
In recent months, Daniel Hetherington has been travelling to the Top End from interstate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Working for a remedial building company, specialising in waterproofing and repairs, Mr Hetherington said about 90 per cent of the apartment blocks he had inspected had water ingress issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Water gets into the structural steel components of slab fixings and steel structures and then it starts causing corrosion, which starts leading to structural defects in a building,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Over time, if it’s left for too long, it can condemn a building if it gets down to the footings.”![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/363cb6d82c4dda3b0a146184c25bfc6b\")
<\/p>\n
Structural issues inside some Darwin apartment buildings. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Mr Hetherington said these issues were often managed through “bandaid solutions”.<\/p>\n
“But the bandaid solution is not addressing the problem where the root cause is coming from,” he said.<\/p>\n
“A lot of people think that a handyman can fix a lot of the problems, where it is expertise that you actually need to actually address it.”<\/p>\n
Mr Hetherington said the cost to repair such issues could vary, depending on when they were addressed.<\/p>\n
“It can get in the tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/bf03a88d6fd86908fa6d1bcbe0cfb326\")
<\/p>\n
Daniel Hetherington says water ingress issues can be difficult, and expensive, to fix. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
Buying into a nightmare<\/p>\n
In most cases, maintenance of common property in apartment buildings is handled by strata management companies.<\/p>\n
Kelly Freeburn worked in strata management in Darwin for eight years and managed about 100 buildings.<\/p>\n
She said she would recommend less than 10 per cent of Darwin’s apartment buildings to people looking to buy, due to the structural issues many have.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/24229b0f9db3d889e6aaba6a036aa6e2\")
<\/p>\n
Kelly Freeburn says she’s heard of many apartment owners selling their properties due to rising levies. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
“There’s very few that I would walk up to someone and say, ‘Yep, I definitely think you should buy that’,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve had multiple people that say they’re selling their unit because the levies are going up, and the levies are going up because of the cost of repairs.”<\/p>\n
Call for government action<\/p>\n
Mr Brears said the NT government was either unaware of the extent of the problem or did not understand the long-term implications.<\/p>\n
He said it now needed to take control.<\/p>\n
“I think that the apartment buildings we know have issues \u2014 it should be mandatory for them to be inspected every three years,” he said.<\/p>\n
“A written report would be organised by the body corporate managers and sent to every apartment owner, so every owner knows exactly what the issues are with their building.<\/p>\n
“A copy should also go to the NT government’s director of building control and be added to the building board file on the property.”<\/p>\n
![\"Close](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/810406b1bea58e4d38a765bb825f336e\")
<\/p>\n
John Brears has inspected Top End apartment blocks as a consulting engineer for the past 15 years.\u00a0 (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n
Mr Brears said problems could be identified if the NT government appointed an independent building commissioner, like in New South Wales, to carry out random checks during a building’s construction period and report back to government.<\/p>\n
He also said during construction, the building certifier, engineer and architect should undertake regular progress inspections, and provide written reports to the director of building control.<\/p>\n
Lands, Planning and Environment Minister Joshua Burgoyne said his department had taken action when made aware of building defects that may cause safety issues.<\/p>\n
“It is the responsibility of bodies corporate to notify owners when [they are] made aware of such defects,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The director of building control … has appropriate powers under the act to work with landowners to resolve building defects and issues with buildings of all classes.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A respected Northern Territory construction industry figure has spoken out about what he says is the dangerous state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[159143,64,63,26447,5249,159144,159138,159142,159141,44,8867,1098,159140,159139],"class_list":{"0":"post-274091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-apartments-darwin","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-construction-industry","12":"tag-darwin","13":"tag-darwin-apartments","14":"tag-dodgy-apartments","15":"tag-john-brears","16":"tag-kakadus-crocodile-hotel","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-northern-territory","19":"tag-nt","20":"tag-nt-construction","21":"tag-structural-issues-darwin-apartments"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}