Rebecca wrote:
There was no mention of having to pay the OC the assessed value of the converted space – which in my eyes would be hard to ascertain even at the point of resale of the unit.
There are professional surveyors whose job it is to assess the value of Real Estate and they would give you and your Owners Corp a fair assessment of the before and after values. The principle is well established and a legal precedent was set (in the High Court, I think) after an owner with most of the voting power in the building sold himself the loft space for a tiny sum to create two whole new apartments. This was judged to be a ‘fraud on the minority’ and the principle of ‘buying’ the common property for the difference between the cost of the work and the increase in value was established.
I don’t know if you noticed in that article but Real Estate agents said the attic conversions add about $150,000 to the value of the property and that’s what the renovator paid to build his, so the $15,000 ‘donation’ may have been about right. If it was well off and the established rules hadn’t been followed, any disgruntled owner or a new EC could come along and take legal action to get more money from the renovator.
I think if you have your heart set on this, you might be better off looking at a block of units where someone has already done this and then having a really close look at the EC minutes leading up to the renovation and during it. You might find a building where the other owners are already cool about it. Or it could be that it caused them so much hassle that they said ‘never again’!
Just remember that the OC doesn’t have to sell you Common Property (the roof space) if they don’t want to. That is a great imponderable but if you’re keen, anything is possible.