jezzie – please follow Jimmy’s advice!
With regard to the Applications for Mediation (HERE) and Adjudication (HERE), neither is particularly onerous in terms of completion or of the information required, so if your Strata Manager can’t do that expeditiously (with the assistance of the E/C), then given the urgency do that yourself!
In answer to your questions, if your O/C was to “let it go through with only a SBL”, although I don’t know why it would do that given the information that you’ve provided, the wording of the document could very easily make it specific to the lot in question.
With regard to penalties, I would have thought that the issuing of Orders requiring the Proprietor to at their cost return the common property to its original state and the imposing of monetary penalties if they don’t do it within the prescribed timeframe, or a delayed sale and/or the Vendor having to adjust their sale price (↓) to allow the Purchaser the costs of making those changes would each be a sufficient disincentive.
Note also that if your Plan’s E/C doesn’t make a decision on how to address the “renovator’s” SBL within 2 months of receiving the draft, then under the provisions of Sect 138(2) they can themselves seek Orders to have a NCAT Adjudicator settle the matter, and goodness knows how that may go!
Good luck with it all!