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[Frida Kay]

Water Woes

On Christmas Day my neighbor noticed water flowing through her ceiling. The water pipes and shutoff valve for our side of the block of four are in her  courtyard. Recently the Owners Corporation (she is the Chairperson) fitted another emergency shutoff valve for my unit higher up the external wall adjacent to my juliet balcony or accessible by ladder from her yard.

My neighbor knew I was interstate. During the afternooon she left two text messages and one voice message on my business phone and sent an e-mail hours later advising she would call a locksmith who drilled through my front door lock . Hence the neighbor turned the water off under the kitchen sink. Who is responsible for the locksmith fees?

I checked messages in the evening and immediately contacted a friend who shut off the external lever and mopped up. My neighbor did not use the shutoff valves accessible in her yard because “We have guest here. It’s Christmas” and ” there was thunder and lightning. Much too dangerous to get on a ladder to reach your shutoff lever”. The long delay (7+hours)  in taking action caused extensive damage.  Now what do I do?

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[scotlandx]

Ordinarily I would expect the strata manager to handle the insurance claim process, am not sure how it works with your OC.  However if the Chair offered to put all the quotes in, then I would expect them to do that.

If the Chair got a fully renovated bathroom plus repairs to the bedroom for under $3500 that is cheap.  I am not sure what you mean re something funny going on – they didn’t cause the leak, if I had water pouring into my lot for seven hours I would be pretty alarmed.

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[Frida Kay]

Added details to water woes. The Chairperson monitored the water leaking into her guest bedroom for 7+ hours as she didn’t have the sense to shut off the water mains  (1) at knee level in her garden controlling her and the leaky apt upstairs) or (2) water shut off lever exclusive to the leaking apt. which would have required a tradesperson with a ladder to access.

All the quotes for this incident were not included in the submission to Strata Ins?

The Chairperson neglected to collate the quotes and just looked after her repairs totalling under the figure that didn’t require an Insurance assessor to validate claim.

We don’t have a Strata Manager yet. 

 

 

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[scotlandx]

It’s infuriating but as Jimmy has suggested previously, you need to move on.  The Chair did not do what you think they should have done and subsequently looked after their own interests.  We often get let down by our expectations of other people.

Perhaps you need to look at getting a strata manager as a buffer between the owners.

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[Frida Kay]

Thank you for your feedback.

This is a small lovely block of 4 units that is poorly managed as the office bearers look after their own interests.

Unfortunately, we may need to apply to the Strata Commissioner to appoint a Strata Manager to get the logistics on track. Also to tackle the unit entitlement changes that has been dragging on to no avail for the past 3 years.

This incident is one of many over the 10 yrs we have lived/owned here.

 

 

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