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A couple of years ago the committee permanently closed a large inspection hatch intended to view and service the plumbing of the building. The hatch was located in my bathroom.
The committee says there are other things to worry about and won’t do anything about it. Their attitude has become tiresome and I’m ready to give up. It actually suits me they don’t want to restore access as instead of wasted space I can put in a bath, linen cupboard and tile all the way to the ceiling. This will definately add value to my unit when I sell. The problem is what happens in the future when repairs need to be done to the buildings plumbing? Who’s liable to restore access and for all the lost renovations in my bathroom? Can I be forced to accept this with no compensation?
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I think that given your previous contacts with the strata committee on this, you could just go ahead and send them a detailed plan of what you intend to do (which you need to do anyway) and then if they do need to get access to the pipes at some point in the future, you can say they must have known and it’s down to them to pay for the repairs or, even better, find another access point.
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You know what they say about karma?
I could see a scenario where it’s your residence that is affected and the common property access point would allow a quick fix.
And then the committee says something like, ‘you took over common property for your own benefit’, therefore you should pay the OC for the additional costs to repair the pipes.
There are lots of threads here about owners taking over common property for their own use, to the detriment of other owners. It would be an interesting argument to defend if your blocking the access point caused increased costs towards repairs.
As I said before, just go through the normal processes to inform the committee about your plans to renovate the bathroom. I wouldn’t even mention the access (now no-access) hatch and get their approval. Sounds like it’s time to move on, on this.
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