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I’m looking for some free legal advice really.
a resident parking their car in Visitors car park hit the building and damaged the wall of one of the units. The car hit the wall quite loudly. The car owner has admitted fault verbally.A family member was driving. The damage looks serious as the bricks have been shifted by the collision.
Our Strata Manager has taken on the car insurances responsibility to get quotes to have it repaired and has sent a verbal message to one member of our committee of 3, who has contacted 2 other committee members suggesting that the Manager wants to put it thru our insurance and we would be reimbursed.
This rings alarm bells for me. I and one other member do not want this to happen this way. Also, the Manager is asking for our approval in an inappropriate manner. No email to us. Verbal to one member who txt us.
We are of opinion that Strata should write to the car owner for details and put it to him that he is responsible and should deal with his insurance. We should consult a solicitor and bill him for it.
Any suggestions/ advice for correct procedure welcomed but this Manager appears unprofessional imo.
Has anyone had this scenario to deal with ?
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I’m looking for some free legal advice really.
First up, to be clear, the opinions we offer can’t be considered “legal advice”. We are not lawyers and while you might take our opinions as a guide to your next step, if you want legal advice you should talk to experienced strata lawyers.
Now there are a number of important issues that you might want to consider here. They include the importance of getting the building repaired, whether or not the building has an excess on its insurance, whether a claim will have any effect on future insurance premiums and – as a secondary consideration – whether or not the owner has excess on their insurance.
First, the OC has a statutory duty to maintain and repair common property. That is beyond question.
If the building has no excess on its insurance – i.e. the owners corp has to pay, say, the first $1000 of any insurance claim – then it may be expedient to claim against the building’s insurance because then you don’t have to prove that a resident was driving the car that caused the damage.
However, if there is an excess or a claim would affect future premiums, then you might want to pursue the car owner’s insurer. The other issue – whether or not the car owner’s insurance has an excess amount on it – is all about maintaining good relations in the building. But suffice it to say that if the strata scheme has an excess on its insurance and you are collectively paying that to save one owner from paying theirs, then that’s just wrong.
As for the process of the strata manager informing the committee members, it’s really up to the committee to inform other owners through having a meeting and establishing the decisions and why they made them in the minutes.
In reality, with this kind of situation where everything is done on the quiet, and the only difference made is whether one insurance company pays rather than another, and the Owners Corp (that’s you) doesn’t suffer one way or the other, right and wrong take second place to what’s easy and what’s hard.
This may become trickier when the committee and the strata manager deliberately mislead your building insurer by telling them a lie – e.g. that they don’t know who caused the damage. If that came out later, depending on how strict the terms of the contract are, deliberately misleading your insurer could invalidate your insurance when a claim for something more serious is made.
in summary, if the strata manager is pursuing a building insurance claim because that is easier to achiever and it just happens to also help out an owner with no consequences for the other owners, that I can’t see what harm is being done.
However, if they are saving one owner’s wallet at the expense of the owners’ corp, that needs to be snuffed out immediately. The only way you will know which is which is if they minute these discussions.
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The law is very simple. The person driving the car has been negligent and it is their responsibility to pay for the repairs. If the car has comprehensive or third party property that includes the person as driver then their insurer will pay, otherwise they should pay. Now if they can’t pay then either the strata insurer or the strata can pay, and they will then attempt to recover the money. Discuss this with the strata insurer. Don’t even think of giving false information to the insurer. I would also be careful of using the [strata] insurance at all for minor damage [to common property]. The insurance company will probably just push up the premiums to cover what they paid out.
The person who crashed his car into the common property wall should strictly take full and sole responsibility using his own insurance policy . If the owners corporation wish to be generous and allow the person to claim on the strata policy then the person should at the very least bear the excess cost . The fact is the strata committee has no legal right to extend such generosity as the future premiums of the strata policy will be impacted .