My first house was a condo in a building which had been built about ~2 years before I moved in; I joined the board as the developer was transitioning out and handing over responsibility to the tenants.

This sounds exactly like what happened with us, just on a grander scale. Things like the post-tensioned concrete construction where the steel post-tensioner cables were left exposed to the elements, severe life-safety issues, electronics and machines which died far too early from being under-spec'd and improperly installed.

The developer, of course, had incorporated a new company just for the building, and it was super easy for them to let it go bankrupt. In the end we managed to recoup some costs, but had to raise everyone's fees to cover the reduced lifetime of some of the major structural elements of the building.