In overly simplistic terms, this is what you need to know.
The Owners Corporation – that’s you and your fellow owners – are legally obliged to maintain and repair common property.
The builder or developer has an obligation to rectify defects if they are told about them within the statutory period – currently six years.
If you stop paying your levies, all it means is you will get 10 percent penalty interest charged, plus the cost of employing debt collectors, plus you will lose your vote at general meetings.
So, in the first instance, you Owners Corp should have paid for the respray of the car – they should then seek redress from the builder as part of a larger defect claim.
Most importantly, it sounds like your builder is a cowboy. The damp problem is a building defect – plain and simple – and he is just running down the clock so there can be no defect claim against him.
Right now your Executive Committee should be employing someone like our sponsors IBC to do a thorough assessment of all your building defects – there will be more – and present a case for rectification. If your EC is not already doing this, they are either ignorant or possibly too close to the developer and they need to be voted out.
You need to get involved and get a grip of who is supposed to be doing what in your building.I am assuming the building has hasfd its first AGM and you have anb executive committee in place.
Firstly, you need to write to the Executive Committee and ask them what they are doing about defects. You should copy this the the strata manager.
If you get no response, take an action at the CTTT to at least force them to address the issues. The action would be against the Owners Corp for failure is in its statutory duty to maintain and repair common property.
You should also be communicating with other owners – asking them if they realise that a) the developer needs to fix these problems and b) if they don’t force them to, THEY will have to pay for it themselves. In six yerars time, all it will take is for one owner to say these defectes need to be fixed and the Owners Corp – you and your neighbours – will have to fix them at your own expense.
But whatever you do, don’t go on a one-man levies strike. That’s a last resort and you do that when a large number of owners can’t get the EC to listen to sense and everyone does it at the same time. Not a highly recommended action.
Better to get a group of owners to club together to pay for an expert like a building consultant or a specialised strata lawyer to come in and take control of the problem.