Greg Anderson
Lawyer Director
Practice Areas
- Commercial Litigation
- Construction Litigation
- Building Defect Claims
- Insurance Disputes
- Mediation and Arbitration
- Negligence Claims
- Strata and community title schemes with a focus on disputes arising from building defects.
About Greg
Greg is a founding lawyer director of DEA Lawyers.
He started his legal career at a leading and well respected suburban law firm gaining considerable experience in a wide range of litigation matters over a period of 10 years.
Following that role Greg spent nearly 4 years working at a boutique law firm based in the Sydney CBD. In that time he gained considerable experience in strata and community title disputes with a particular focus on building defect claims.
Greg has a very strong understanding of the way that buildings are built and the things that can go wrong. This is valuable for dealing with builders, developers, insurers and experts involved in the diagnosis of building defects.
Greg is admitted to practice in Supreme Court of NSW and the High Court of Australia and has handled litigation in most jurisdictions in NSW. He is a member of the Law Society of NSW, the Institute of Strata Title Management and the National Community Titles Institute.
He has presented papers and conducted training sessions for strata managers, experts and fellow lawyers about strata and community title disputes and building defect claims.
Examples of work
Some examples of the cases that Greg has handled are:
A home warranty insurance claim for a large residential strata scheme in Redfern. The insurer refused to indemnify the owners corporation for the cost of repairing all of the defective balconies in the building in circumstances where it was ultimately proven that all of the balconies suffered from the same construction defect (even though they may not all be leaking – yet). The insurer also alleged that the claim was made out of time.
The owners corporation was successful at the hearing before a Referee appointed by the Supreme Court resulting in judgment from the Supreme Court for close to $2,000,000.00 plus legal costs and interest on legal costs.
This led to an appeal and the NSW government amending the Home Building Act 1989 (NSW) in an attempt to resolve its concerns about the time limit for making insurance claims which arose from this case.
The owners corporation was ultimately successful on the appeal (notwithstanding the legislative changes) and obtained an order requiring the insurer to pay its costs of the whole proceedings as well as interest on those costs.
This is an example of where an owners corporation was forced to litigate its claim and was ultimately successful and justified in that approach.
A dispute with a large (and well known) developer/builder and the home warranty insurer where there were significant and widespread defects in a large residential strata scheme located close to the Sydney CBD.
The defects arose, amongst other things, from non-compliance with the Building Code of Australia (relating to the fire safety of the building) where the estimated cost of rectifying those defects exceeded $2,000,000.00. To make matters worse, the Local Council had issued an order on the owners corporation requiring it to rectify the defects.
After some lengthy negotiations, the developer/builder agreed to return to site and rectify the defects at no cost to the owners corporation avoiding lengthy and expensive litigation about those defects.
A home warranty insurance claim where the insurer refused to indemnify the owners corporation of a large residential strata scheme located on the northern beaches of Sydney.
The defects were, amongst other things, associated with the water proofing of the building and significant and extensive breaches of the Building Code of Australia (relating to the fire safety of the building).
The owners corporation was forced to litigate the claim in the Supreme Court of NSW resulting in a hearing before a Referee appointed by the Court. The owners corporation was successful before the Referee receiving an award of over $5,000,000.00.
A long running home warranty insurance claim on behalf of a residential strata scheme located in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.
Greg was able to settle the matter out of Court for over $1,000,000.00 meaning that the owners corporation could get on with fixing the building rather than being involved in risky, lengthy and expensive litigation before the Supreme Court of NSW.