When an envelope item survives to handover
What to do when the wall is already finished.
In short: How a defect investigation is built around findings that should have been caught earlier.
The situation
The brickwork is up, rendered where it is rendered, and the weep holes are wrong. The remedy is no longer a bricklayer's afternoon, and the builder knows it.
What changes about the report
It stops being a list and becomes an argument. Each item needs the observation, the photograph, the requirement it fails and the consequence of leaving it.
What we do not do
We do not open anything up, sample ground, or certify engineering. Where a structural opinion is needed the report says an engineer is required and why.
Where it goes
To the builder first, in writing. If that fails, to NSW Fair Trading's dispute resolution service, and then to NCAT.
The tribunal step
NCAT usually wants an expert witness report drawn to its practice note. That is a separate document and we prepare it separately.
Written by the Owner Inspections team from inspections carried out in Riverstone. Licensed building practitioners, NSW Fair Trading licence 366177C.
