Happy to stand corrected when I’m wrong, but just to be clear my assumptions are that…
- flatmate is talking about the responsibility for rectifying damage to an item of private property, where that property is not a lot owners’ fixture.
- “responsibility” is not limited to that of the Owners Corporation’s Insurers
- the damage caused to the private property was consequent to a failure for which the Owners Corporation has accepted responsibility (and there’s more to say on that too; but I won’t)
- the damage to the private property was not caused by the Owners Corporation’s repair of that failure.
If all assumptions are correct, then I stand by my original advice.
I know that it doesn’t seem fair and that a Common Law ruling may be different depending upon specific circumstances, but based upon interpretations of (NSW) Strata Law by organisations far more competent at that than me, that’s where I believe an Owners Corporation’s “buck” stops in terms of its perceived responsibility for simply everything.