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[Iain]

Hi all

I hope that you can help with this issue.

i am an investor who owns a unit in a 36 apartment strata block. All apartments currently have balconies and the balcony railings are common property.

Owners have been given a choice about some work which is required to these balconies. They can either enclose the balconies fully with windows or replace the balcony railings with a more modern design (the current railings are quite old and in need of renovation/replacement).

The EC has presented a costing proposal which involves those owners who are choosing to enclose the balconies to pay in full for the work required. this seems consistent with legal advice as this is a change to common property, requested by those owners, and so should be paid for by those owners in their entirety.

With regards to the replacement of balcony railings, legal advice has been obtained by the EC which states that there is an argument that this work should also be paid for by lot owners because it is an ‘improvement’ which can be levied to those individual lot owners whose balcony is being improved.

Other owners (myself included) have obtained legal advice which says that this is incorrect and these sort of changes  (i.e. a modernisation by way of replacing the balcony rails with a more modern design but still serving the same function – i.e. a balcony rail) to common property should be paid for by way of a levy in accordance with unit entitlements.

Does anyone know what the most correct legal answer is to the question of whether a replacement of balcony railings which are common property should be paid for by lot owners individually or borne across all units by way of unit entitlements? I don’t think the fact that some owners have chosen to enclose their balconies should make a difference to the answer and I imagine it would be similar to a situation where some units in a block have balconies and some don’t.

Look forward to any guidance as this is really proving a troublesome matter.

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