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On a related note, many strata committees include a portmanteau item on the agenda, such as “the condition of the building and grounds”, which will be used for any late items that miss the notice deadline. Is that legal?
Sir Humphrey said:
EV owners will set their cars to pause charging between 5 and 8PM to avoid the time of typical peak demand
We investigated and found that our peak demand was hot afternoons. Air-conditioning uses far more kWh than stoves because once the AC is running it’s left on until bed-time (or all night in some cases). Meanwhile, refrigerators run for a few minutes and stoves are turned off after an hour or so.
So perhaps any permission to draw current for EV charging should allow for the weather!
How old are these windows and doors? If your strata plan was registered before 1975, they’re the owner’s responsibility. Otherwise they’re common property and you shouldn’t alter them.
If you check Hansard for the debates on the D&BP Bill, you’ll find the bill was praised from all sides (Lib, Lab, Greens and others) because it would solve problems that new buildings were giving. No-one mentioned older buildings, not even MPs whose electorates contain many Class 2 buildings dating from the 1940s. So there’s no-one likely to admit the Act has problems.
Yet a building like MissPopEye’s clearly shouldn’t have the same issues as the new ones. Its owners have been dealing with waterproofing problems for years and know what to do so that the problems don’t recur three weeks later. And blind freddy should be able to see that $9000 certifications won’t fit in the budgets that modest older buildings have.
What we need is a few parliamentarians who’ve served on strata committees. Alas, that won’t happen anytime soon.
Lintel. Lentils are beans.
Not quite directly from the LTO but look at https://www.nswlrs.com.au/Information-Brokers and choose one. Have your credit card with you. By-laws have to be registered or they’re not enforceable.
Storage access to the meter room doesn’t sound like a good idea. Eventually someone will put (say) a leaky LPG cylinder under a pile of old clothes. A circuit breaker throws a spark, kerbang-fizz, and the whole building needs rewiring or even structural repair.
I’m not in Victoria but I’m sure the membrane is common property. If it wasn’t, you could remove it and flood your downstairs neighbours.
A similar situation exists with balcony doors. The door connects two private spaces yet it’ll be shown as a black line on the strata plan and hence is in a common-property wall and is itself common property. So is the lock in the balcony door.
You don’t ask what would be legal. For it to be safe, the cylinder/bottle has to be in a current of air which will disperse any slight leak. If the carpark bay is walled and roofed in, there might not be adequate air circulation.
Gas is very easy to ignite. Gas in bottles is stored under high pressure and thus all the connections, stopcocks etc. need to be in good condition. Petrol just sits in unpressurised tanks.
If both your petrol tank and your gas bottle started to leak, your car would run dry long before the next barbecue.
Jimmy-T wrote:
I suspect the renovation may already have occurred
The story said that the OC omitted the subject’s windows from the renovation. The window in the pic is a 1970’s sliding aluminium window. Modern aluminium windows have coloured aluminium, often white. Colours look nicer but replacing windows is not cheap because the old windows need to be released from the grip of the surrounding brickwork.
Having seen one of the couple’s windows in the background of a pic in the news, I’m left wondering why it needs renovation.
Re david2708’s non-payers, have you thought of starting legal proceedings? Of course, you can add the reasonable costs thereof to the debt. If all else fails, and you think they have money somewhere, you can start bankruptcy proceedings.
And may I suggest that, even before contacting your local council, you visit Dial Before You Dig which will show you what underground surprises await your gardeners. Gas mains, high-voltage electricity, even perhaps a railway – they’ll all surface in a DBYD query. Then you’ll know you’re not asking your council for the impossible.
You need a lot more than a single meeting. Fortunately, someone’s put the word membrane in the heading for this topic; I hope that someone was you and that your committee has had the roof investigated properly by someone competent.
Any tiles that go on top aren’t crucial to the waterproofing; that’s the membrane’s job. Whatever’s on top of the roof slab now will have to be removed under the direction of someone qualified whom you should by now have appointed to supervise the work.
Then a suitable membrane must be applied to the slab-top as specified by your superintendent. Special attention must be paid to any roof penetration by vents or conduits and the mounting points of airconditioning equipment etc. Then bedding is to be placed on top of the membrane in such a way that the tiles everywhere
will slope towards drains. Your superintendent will inspect the bedding to ensure that water penetrating between the tiles won’t cause cement to leach everywhere like it has in my building. Finally, the tiles are laid on top of the bedding.You don’t say where your building is. If it’s near the ocean, all the above becomes doubly important because your roof has to endure salt spray.
With 27 units, you may have an owner who’s qualified to review the contract for you. If not, ask your lawyer to eyeball the contracts and warn you what risks you carry. Check that both tenderers have current adequate insurance.
Unfortunately, the NSW authorities have not seen fit to introduce licensing for building consultants so you’ll have to find someone who’s good at waterproofing and legally able to work for you.
Finally, the tiles etc. will become part of the roof. You’re not adding to common property so I don’t think you need a special majority. I’d suggest your committee should have already obtained competent independent advice and should be able to select a contractor.
How could a strata loan help you? At (say) 8% interest, you’d need $160,000 p.a. just for the interest. Then you need to reduce the balance and pay all the other bills.