Not buying, I wasn’t selling.
JT said: “If I take the wheels off a car and leave it on bricks on common property, have I altered it? I don’t think so. How about if I build a shed that sits on common property but isn’t fixed to it? Same story, I reckon.”
The car is dumping and I doubt the shed would not be fixed, there are requirements for fixing sheds or they blow away.
Unauthorisded additions are the responsibility of the OC to maintain and repair. Plenty of case law on that. Unauthorised additions can interfere with the use and enjoyment of common property by the owners who have the beneficial use of common property.
If the SC member is looking for the OC to create a barrier then it is hard to image how the barrier (planter boxes) is not a chattel (property) of the OC, hard to image it isn’t an addition.
If the owner is looking to do the barrier then the owner would need some form of exclusive use of the area – a special resolution motions.
I will be brief because I can’t make choices for the OC is question, I can only give information. I often feel Flatchat tries to make choices for owners.
I know of a case where an owner had to move two poly tanks from the common property because they were an unauthorised addition. They were not fixed or required remedial work to remove.
Things do not need to be fixtures to be additions to the common property.
Sections in the Act on cosmetic and minor work came about because such small scale work under the old law required a process that was overkill.
As much as it seems complete overkill, s 108 is about additions and if an OC is looking to create a planter box barrier then, on the information I have, said OC would struggle to argue the barrier is not an addition to the common property.
Perhaps we all need to lobby the Minister for further reforms.