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Our strata is in NSW. One of the common property taps was leaking so needed to be replaced this tap is on common property. An extension to this tap goes through a wall and services another lot that is a courtyard. the strata manager informed the owner that the common property tap had to be fixed (for 100’s of dollars) and as the lot owners tap was attached to the same pipe requested the lot owner to pay under $100 to replace the lot owners tap. the lot owner refused to pay and expected the SP to pay as the ‘branch tap’ within the owners lots was working fine. Note: other owners taps within the complex run off common property water pipes.
As the lot owners tap was within their lot and through a hole in the wall (part common and part lot) and albeit attached to common property infrastructure and not original (and we believe was put on by a previous owner in the distant past) – is the Strata Mgr and EC correct in not replacing the tap as the owner refused – as strata monies are not to be used for individual lots. the owner is threatening legal action to replace their lot tap by the SP.
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taps – I don’t know why the replacement of the leaking tap cost $100s when they typically cost $20, or why Lot Owners’ garden taps are supplied by the common supply (unless Lots are not separately metered), or why a former Owner of the affected Lot was permitted to extend the common supply, but it’s all water under the bridge now (sorry!) as it’s the Owners Corporation that’s responsible for the maintenance and repair of its common water supply, so it pays.
I don’t agree with Whale on this.
If this was an improvement and not an original feature then if their is no bylaw ref it and the owners claims it’s common property and so the Strata are obliged to repair it, the strata can vote to just remove it unless the owner pays for the repair.
Strictly speaking a bylaw would be required to regularize the situation but this seems extreme as the owner will now realizes, he fixes it at his cost or it’s disconnected.
taps – the information provided by the Department of Fair Trading is by necessity generalist, however there are some specific factors at your Plan that come into play.
The most significant one of those is that even though the Owners Corporation (O/C) was at some stage aware that a previous Owner had altered and/or added to the common water supply, it not only did nothing about that such as by at that time making that Owner and subsequent ones of that Lot responsible for the on-going maintenance and repair of those illegal works, its now undertaken the replacement of that entire section of the common water supply and now seeks a reimbursement of its costs to do that from the current Lot Owner.
Those unchallenged works by the original Owner means that the section of the common water supply that they altered and/or added to has itself become part of the common property, despite the fact that the garden tap is within the cubic air space of the Lot involved.
Your O/C could seek a reimbursement from the current Lot Owner for its costs to replace the garden tap ($20), but then you mentioned that it wasn’t faulty. So I’d suggest that your O/C just treats the $100s spent on plumbing repairs as the costs of a lesson cheaply learnt; that being to ensure that any works by Lot Owners that result in a change to the common property are consented to in advance in accordance with Sect 65A of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (1996) and that for minor works, it at least obtains a written undertaking from the Lot Owner accepting responsibility for the on-going maintenance and repair of whatever it is that comprises their works.
Just be thankful that the change to the common property in this instance comprised a minor addition to a common water supply and not an attached awing or a split-system aircon. fitted to common wall, because in the same circumstances and in the absence of proper consent with the original Owner (who seeks to undertake the works) the O/C would be responsible for those also.
0910 PS – just read KWP’s post, and yes it’s another point-of-view, but note that I’ve differentiated (above) between the previous Lot Owner who presumably undertook the illegal works and the current Lot Owner who’s now benefiting from those, because the O/C would be hard-pressed in my opinion to justify legally, morally, or financially, the removal of a minor extension to a common water supply that it knew about, which its just reinstated, and which the current beneficiary didn’t install. As I said, a lesson cheaply learnt.
[In the ACT] We are proposing some rules (aka bylaws) amendments to our next AGM that includes the following clause:
- A unit owner must at the owner’s cost repair and maintain any other item installed on common property and used only for the benefit of the unit. The unit owner must ensure that the item does not unreasonably interfere with the reasonable use and enjoyment of the common property by other unit owners or cause any significant adverse effect on the appearance of the common property or the safety of occupiers of the units or of the public, regardless of whether that installation has or has not been authorised by the OC. Examples of such items include, but are not limited to, air-conditioning systems, hot-water systems and awnings.
taps – as you’ve been continually referring to the plumber’s repairs in the past tense I assumed until now that everything, including that minor extension into the Owner’s Lot, had been left as it originally was at the completion of those.
That’s what your Owners Corporation (O/C) should have done for a marginally additional cost, and what it should do now for more than that!
This is much ado about nothing in my opinion, and so it seems to me that there’s some bad feelings between that Lot Owner and the Strata Manager and/or the Executive Committee.
So whilst I suggest that they simply suck-it-up, if there’s more to all of this than it appears, then your O/C could attempt to have the Lot Owner agree in writing to accept responsibility for the minor extension of the common supply into their Lot, and if they refuse, then jump-the-gun on their threat of legal action by taking them to mediation in the hope that facilitated discussions will achieve that outcome.
@taps said:
do we put the tap back? (even though it’s illegal and request that the owner pays if anything goes wrong with said tap by way of a letter from the owner)
NO
The tap was never approved or fitted by the OC if you refit it the OC is accepting ongoing responsibility for the tap and pipe because it is fitting it.
The OC was perfectly entitled to remove common property that was not up to standard that the owner wasn’t prepared to pay to upgrade (at very small cost).
Tell the owner that if he wants the tap back the OC require a bylaw stating that he accepts full responsibility for the installation and ongoing cost of said tap as well as paying for a suitable bylaw to be registered (approx $1,000).
This is the official way of changing common property in NSW and if he contests it at NCAT I believe he will loose. You can then be generous and tell the owner that if he just pays for it to be installed he can forget the bylaw but if he causes subsequent problems the OC will disconnect the tap permanently (this the OC would have to pay for unless they fit an on / off valve outside his lot that can isolate his extension at will).