Any allegation of additional wear and tear, and electricity usage etc being the responsibility of any particular subset of owner rather than being the responsibility of all of the owners must be proven rather than merely assumed.The ‘benefit principle’ is to be used honestly and reasonably. (See the 2017 ‘Grundl case’ at [16] and [20]. The Grundl case involved an expensive one off repair to a roof which did not form part of the roof of Mr Grundl’s lot.
The maintenance works must be wholly or substantially for the benefit of some but not all of the lots. Note the words ‘wholly’ or ‘substantially’. The corollary must be that the other lots must derive no benefit or negligible benefit only.
The accountant may have found a ‘creative’ way to compartmentalize these charges but this would be open to challenge and is not proof, in itself, that the hotel guests caused the damage or the additional charges.Levies are generally prospectively applied and not retrospectively applied.
Was the Special Levy approved at a General Meeting?