An audit of apartments under construction in NSW has found defects in two Newcastle unit buildings.
NSW Fair Trading said the two buildings were in Wickham and Toronto and had been inspected last month.
Compass Housing confirmed that the Wickham building was its affordable housing project nearing completion in Station Street.
"We believe these inspections are an important and helpful process, and we can advise that the issues identified during the inspection have since been rectified by the builder," a Compass spokesperson said.
Fair Trading began targeting "high-risk" projects in September under the new Residential Apartment Buildings (Compliance and Enforcement) Powers Act.
The ongoing audit has found defects in almost all of the 87 buildings inspected across the state.
A list of the buildings says the projects in Wickham and Toronto have defects which have been identified and are being "managed".
Audits of two apartment projects in Cardiff and Hamilton are listed as "closed - no further action".
Seventeen buildings, all but one of them in Sydney, have been slapped with more serious stop-work, rectification and prohibition orders.
The new Act is designed to give Fair Trading more powers to check that buildings are free from defects before private certifiers or councils issue occupation certificates.
Unit owners in Sydney and Newcastle have been stung with huge repair bills and in some cases forced to evacuate due to serious defects not identified by certifiers.
One Newcastle high-rise residential developer told the Newcastle Herald that he welcomed the state audits, which he hoped would give apartment buyers more confidence in the industry.
Minister for Better Regulation Kevin Anderson said the projects selected for audits had been determined using risk profiling.
"Our data shows around 20 per cent of developers are causing the majority of problems in the market," he said.
"By analysing the history and performance of certifiers, builders and developers, and combining regulatory data from across different government agencies ... we've been able to develop a powerful risk matrix to target our audits.
"What we've seen on the ground supports our predictions with inspectors identifying defects on the majority of the projects audited."
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