SYDNEY — Opal Tower, the Sydney Olympic Park apartment building evacuated on Christmas Eve 2018 after cracks appeared, has been officially declared defect-free. Owners marked the milestone with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday, 10 October 2026, ABC News reported.
The 36-storey, 392-unit tower became a national symbol of the apartment defect crisis. Its repair took close to eight years and involved a class action, two legal cases, ongoing rectification work and relocations of residents.
How it started
Cracks appeared on level 10 on 24 December 2018. Fearing a collapse, authorities evacuated thousands of people and shut the nearby train station and surrounding roads. Police said at the time that the tower had moved “1 to 2 millimetres”. More cracks were found on other levels in the following days.
An engineers’ report commissioned by the NSW government concluded in 2019 that the damage was caused by a combination of “design and construction matters, in particular changes made after the original design,” the ABC reported.
A 20-year structural warranty
Shady Eskander, chairman of the Opal Tower Owners Corporation, has led the owners’ fight for repairs and compensation. He told the ABC that the building now carries a 20-year structural warranty, which he described as an Australian first. According to the ABC, all owners have been compensated and all legal matters have been resolved.
“The story is about defects, but really it’s about devastation to people’s lives when something goes wrong in your home, it completely up-ends you,” Eskander said. “It’s fantastic to announce that Opal Tower is defect-free.”
He credited a collaborative approach with the builder, consultants and others involved in the design and construction. The ABC named developer Ecove, engineers WSP and builder Icon as the other parties involved in the process.
Resident Nutan Borkar, who was out of her unit for 11 months after the evacuation, said there was finally “light at the end of the tunnel after a big struggle.”
The reforms that followed
Building standards were lifted across NSW after Opal Tower. The then Coalition government created the role of building commissioner, and under the Residential Apartment Buildings Act 2020, Building Commission NSW can now inspect apartment buildings for serious defects in waterproofing, fire safety, structure, cladding and services, and order them fixed. For buildings four storeys or higher with contracts from 1 January 2018, developers must lodge a defects bond of 2% of the contract price.
“The lesson that can be learnt from Opal Tower … is that quality needs to be there so that defects aren’t,” Eskander said. Builders and contractors, he added, “will spend more on fixing the defect than building it right the first time.”
What it means for owners and committees
Act early and in writing. Statutory warranties run out. In NSW, defects in residential buildings built in the last six years may be covered by the statutory warranty, and buildings up to ten years old with serious common-property defects can be reported to the Building Commission. Committees that commission an independent defect report early keep their options open.
Use the regulator. Complaints about common-property defects are best lodged by the owners corporation or its strata manager, who hold the records the Commission needs. Individual owners can complain when a defect only affects their lot, or when the owners corporation won’t respond.
Ask for a long-term warranty. Opal Tower’s 20-year structural warranty is unusual. When a remediation is negotiated, owners can ask what guarantee comes with the fix, and who stands behind it.
Keep owners informed. Long remediation projects strain everyone. Regular updates on scope, cost and timing reduce conflict.
Buyers: check the strata records for defect reports, building bond claims and Building Commission orders. Our guide to reading a NSW strata report explains where to look, and our explainer on special levies covers how big repairs get paid for.
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Sources: ABC News, Paulina Vidal and Isla Evans, 10 October 2026; Building Commission NSW; NSW Government, Strata repairs and maintenance. General information only, not legal advice.
