what the agent is rushing you past

I reviewed a strata report this week for a large apartment complex in St Ives, built by Meriton.

The prospective buyer was being pushed to proceed on a 66W. No cooling-off period. The conveyancing solicitor and the agent were aligned on urgency, and at one point the agent suggested the buyer didn’t really need to speak to their solicitor because “they look for complications.”

The agent said there were no issues. I didnt need to look past the news artilces. A $100m build, now facing up to $120m in defects being litigated in the Supreme Court of New South Wales

The buyer had a friend who suggested he go through the report with. We spent an hour going through the 3000 page report. He didn’t proceed.

Not because of the defects. Not because of the litigation. Because the trust was gone. There’s a tendency to treat defects - particularly in large developments - as a simple red flag. But it’s rarely that simple.

In many cases, particularly with builders like Meriton, defects can be managed over time. They often get resolved, depending on the circumstances, and for some buyers this can present an opportunity to access a property they otherwise couldn’t afford - if they are willing to take a measured, calculable risk.

The difficulty is that most conveyancing solicitors aren’t set up to process that kind of risk and dont have the time to go through the report with their client. Their role is to identify issues, not to weigh them in a broader commercial or practical context.

Thats where I come in - reading between documents, understanding patterns, and helping buyers form an understanding on what sits behind the records.

Because the question isn’t just what’s there.

It’s whether you understand what you’re looking at - and whether you trust the process that brought you to it.