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Hi, I recently had a blocked drain in my bathroom and I received permission from the strata manager to organise a plumber to inspect the problem. The plumber identified the problem to be outside of my unit and stated that it was a strata issue. I informed the strata manager about the problem who asked my plumber not to do the job as they had their own preferred plumbers that would fix the issue. As a result, the plumber that I contacted left it at that and did no further work. I have since been issued an invoice from the plumber that I had contacted for inspecting the problem and working out a solution. I was wondering if it is reasonable for me to pass this invoice on to the strata manager to pay or should I really be paying this? Is it typical for this type of issue to be dealt with in the by-laws? I understand that the invoice for the work done by the strata manager’s plumber will be dealt with by strata funds but I just wanted to double check how I should deal with the invoice that I was issued with.
Any advice you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks.
Jeff.
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There are two reasons you should pass this on to the strata manager. Firstly, they advised you to get a plumber in and secondly, it’s a common property issue.
FYI: This really has nothing to do with by-laws – it’s about what constitutes common property and the Owners Corporation’s (i.e. all owners, including you) legal responsibility to maintain and repair it.
On re-reading your posting, was it the strata manager, building manager or rental manager (if you are a tenant) who told you to get a plumber? I aslk because normally you wouldn’t ask your strata manager about a problem that appeared to be inside your unit.
Either way, the bill should go to the strata manager. And if you’re still not sure who does what you could do a lot worse that have a look at the Fair Trading booklet Strata Living to explain how things work in strata.
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