Owners in one of Toplace's residential developments are worried a decision to strip the company of its building licence might have unintended consequences in their fight for remediation works.
After an investigation, NSW Fair Trading has permanently cancelled the company's building licence, while Toplace director Jean Nassif has had his licence suspended for 10 years.
The bans are set to come into effect from next week, and a Toplace spokesperson said the company would appeal the decision.
Corrie Ford and Leith Dawes live in an apartment in the Vicinity complex in Canterbury in Sydney's inner west.
While they're happy that Fair Trading is taking the issue of building defects seriously and investigating repeat offenders, they don't know what the news will mean for their battle to have the building repaired.
"I like that the office of the building commissioner is … using their powers to try and get dodgy players out of the building industry," Ms Ford said.
"However, we're just not sure how that leaves us and our complex.
"If Toplace no longer has a building licence, what does that mean for us? Are Toplace just now going to fold and we're going to be left having to pay the costs of the remediation for the whole building— that's the that's the real concern."
Work has already been done to fix waterproofing issues in their apartment, but large temporary columns have been installed in the building's basement and some apartments to support inadequate transfer beams and slabs.
NSW Labor's Shadow Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation Courtney Houssos echoed their concerns.
"I'm calling on the government today to outline what checks they will put in place to ensure that the apartment buildings that have defects are going to be fixed appropriately," she said.
"We know that there are a number of Toplace projects that aren't completed, but we also know that there's a number of projects where they have agreed to fix the defects.
"We want to make sure that fixing a defect is done to the appropriate standard."
Ms Houssos said additional inspections or greater scrutiny through the building commissioner could be appropriate, but that would be up to experts to determine.
NSW Fair Trading's executive director of complaints and dispute resolution Matt Press told the ABC that Toplace would still be held to account as a developer.
"This action is against the building entity of Toplace, the development entity still stands and so those consumers continue to have their statutory rights and an entity they can claim against," he said.
"For projects currently under construction I expect Toplace will identify a new builder to take those projects forward.
"Similarly for projects that are completed, they'll contract another entity to fix up any works or rectification matters that need to be dealt with."
Mr Press encouraged concerned home owners to contact NSW Fair Trading.
He said their investigations were ongoing.
"We've got a range of investigations ongoing throughout all types of building practitioners," he said.
"We've just completed an audit of 10 certifiers across the state and three of those were referred to investigation, one of those had their registration permanently cancelled and another for a year."
Toplace declined to comment on Friday, saying the notice was subject of legal proceedings.
But the company has previously said it would make alternate arrangements to continue construction on its projects.
"Toplace has always stood by its projects and where defects have occurred it has returned to fix them like all other major developers," a spokesperson said on Thursday.
