The flammable cladding crisis continues with the NSW state government claiming that the 444 buildings on its list of potential buildings with flammable cladding is privileged due to its security risk. It is claimed that making those buildings known may increase the risk of terrorist incidents and or arson. As a home owner I would personally want to know whether or not my building was on the list but I would not necessarily want it released to the world at large and that is not for the reasons given by the government. Why? I’d want to know if my building was affected for my own peace of mind for safety reasons  but also because if it is on the list and further investigations in to whether or not it has cladding were required this would incur costs and I would want to know what to start budgeting for.

I’d want investigations conducted quickly so as it could be either confirmed as not being affected or as being affected. If the building was affected then it would affect my budgeting as there will need to be funds to fix the cladding (potentially remove and replace it) and it could affect the short term saleability of the property. I stress short term saleability as it would be like all buildings with defects, once the defect is identified and remedied the issue affecting value is resolved. In fact, personally I’d rather buy in a building that had been through a defects rectification programme than a building where defects had not been identified and were potentially lurking in the background. The link to the Tom Rabe and Nick Bonyhady’s SMH article of 5 November 2019 about cladding is here. It contains a good diagram showing what the issue with the cladding is.