The trail of destruction left by two of Sydney’s most infamous property figures

Residents of the Somerset apartment complex in Carlingford faced a horrifying situation: their building, constructed by notorious developer Dyldam, was left with a string of defects and no functioning fire safety system. And the responsibility to organise the fix landed with Result Strata Management, which would soon become the only strata firm to be permanently banned from practising in the state.

Owners of the hundreds of units and the building’s commercial space have spent about $800,000 fixing the problems, and by the end of this month will have fully completed all known fire safety issues with the building, said Mark Cowell, the licensee in charge of Compass Strata, which runs the building management committee.

“All issues known to the owners have already been completed or are in the final stages of completion, and there is a further commitment by the owners to rectify anything else that arises.”

But they are still grappling with the trail of destruction left by two of the industry’s most storied figures.

“I’ve been a strata manager for 25 years, and I’ve very rarely ever seen a building in this sort of situation,” Cowell said. “It only happens when builders and developers are not held accountable early enough in the process, or are able to do a runner, to escape the consequences of their misdeeds.”

Fire and Rescue NSW inspected the property over two days in October. The agency found the essential fire safety measures installed “were not being maintained and were not capable of operating to the standard” required by law, according to communications between Fire and Rescue and the City of Parramatta Council.

During the inspection, Fire and Rescue staff reported nine faults across the fire detection system: the mains power supply for the evacuation system – linked to the sound and intercom systems – had been shut off, and the system was marked “offline”.

Staff also reported a tank for two water pumps was only half full, and a relay pump was three-quarters full. “FRNSW believes that there are inadequate provisions for fire safety within the building.”

The letter to the council expressed concern about whether the building contained combustible cladding, but it could not verify if it did. The owner’s corporation had applied for the removal of cladding under Project Remediate, but then withdrew the application, it said.

That was a good result. The owners had already fixed almost every fire door in the property and paid for a litany of other fixes for defects.

The Herald revealed Dyldam to have built defective buildings across Sydney before its collapse on New Year’s Eve 2020. The company was co-founded by Sam Fayad, who is bankrupt, owing personal debts of more than $2.8 billion – believed to be the largest bankruptcy in Australia. On Monday, it was revealed he was the “Australian businessman” named in a corruption inquiry in Hong Kong. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Dyldam is also responsible for Observatory Place, the 24-storey abandoned orange apartment block in the heart of Parramatta that was deemed so dangerous Building Commission issued a stop-work order. It is now being rectified.

Cowell said it is difficult to know how the Carlingford building’s fire safety systems were not updated for so long because Result Strata’s record-keeping was so poor. It provided only about 12 documents to the new strata body when there should have been hundreds, he said.

Result Strata’s Michael Lee was exposed in a Four Corners report of running an AGM of another building with security guards – reportedly paid for using owners’ funds – to control the meeting.

Last year, Fair Trading cancelled the licences of both Result Strata and Lee after its investigation found the company had “consistently failed to appropriately disclose conflicts of interest, consistently breached the rules of conduct … charged fees for services not rendered [and] failed to ensure properties under management complied with critical fire and safety obligations”, among other things.

Lee could not be reached for comment, but he has previously claimed to be a victim of Fair Trading.

“I have contacted the prime minister about this and all the ministers and all MPs, and we will tell the Supreme Court that this is persecution, and they are acting only on the basis of allegations and no proof at all. They never gave me the chance to provide my side of the story and never tested the evidence,” Lee told this masthead at the time of his suspension.

Cowell, who said he has had sleepless nights trying to fix the chaos in the building, said: “It’s a shame that the owners and managers that came in after were stuck with having to carry out this work that should have been done by the builder and the developer, and should have been enforced by the Building Commission and by the council.

“All of the government bodies that are supposed to protect the owners, they’re the ones that let everyone down. It’s sad that the owners had to rectify it, but we are well into it.”

Local councils are responsible for monitoring the safety of existing buildings. The City of Parramatta Council was first alerted to problems at the site almost a year earlier, after Fire and Rescue NSW conducted an inspection of the property.

A spokesperson for the council said it was investigating the situation and had prepared a notice of intent to issue to the building owner. It could not immediately identify who first certified the property.

The Sydney Morning Herald has opened a bureau in the heart of Parramatta. Email parramatta@smh.com.au with news tips.