Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
@livestrong said:
Hi AllI am hoping to get some advice on the following issue I am facing with my unit.
We renovated two bathrooms and relocated a laundry from upstairs to downstairs.
The strata is now asking us to have the bylaw amended so that we are responsible for any future plumbing issues that may occur in both my unit and the one beneath, for example a burst pipe that leads to flooding.
When we did the renovation, our architect was under the impression that as we were not creating any new ingress or egress to the property, but merely extended existing plumbing services that there was no need for a bylaw amendment, but rather that all we needed was a building certificate to demonstrate that the work was professionally done and comes with a seven year builders warranty.
Can anyone please advise if we are indeed required to have the bylaw amended, that in all likelihood will have an effect on our being covered by the strata home insurance policy?
If we are, can we insist that there is a seven year limit on the bylaw based on std builders warranty as it seems unfair if there is no end date to the bylaw for both us and future owners?
Thanking you in advance
Livestrong
Livestrong, I am no expert, but why should your OC have to bear the cost of any problems that arise from the major work you have had done?
How about you and the current EC door knock every Owner and give them a prepared printed statement of what you have accomplished.
Many people can not understand a balance sheet but a very simple version of what needs to be paid every quarter could help.
Also a simple list of obligations e.g. insurance, OH&S legislation, etc. and explain as necessary.
True, some people only think of their personal costs, but they may need to be helped to understand that they not only ‘own’ the place where they live, but they share ownership with everyone else.
@JimmyT said:
Fair Trading goes even further and says you shouldn’t sign a lease that says you have to have the carpet professionally cleaned when you leave, unless you’ve agreed to that as part of a condition to allow you to keep a pet on the premises.In NSW, most people I know who rent have a clause in their lease saying that a receipt from a ‘professional’ carpet cleaning company has to be produced before people can hope to get their bond back. As there are so few rental properties fit to live in for a reasonable price, most do not have a choice, because the next 20 people in line for the place will agree to it.
@irishpaddy said:
@Gus Kernot said:
I absolutely agree with you Jimmy. The Minister is shooting the messenger.NSW has horribly inadequate systems for dealing with building defects and Owners have no choice but to resort to legal action to protect their rights.
I was hopeful the recent sensitivity about developers being political donors might change the emphasis of government but apparently not so far.
Does the Minister think unit owners don’t vote?
I also strongly agree with Jim and Gus that Anthony Roberts is wrong about home building insurance. Its not the lawyers who are the problem.
I have been a member of an executive committee who tried unsucessfully to get a builder to fix problems and then went to the CTTT. The building defects included major waterproofing problems, major problems with the tiling of common areas and the electrical distribution board burnt down. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fixing the place. Apart from the builder our criticism is not of our lawyers but of the CTTT who were hopeless and totally unsympathetic to our consumer complaints.
Our lawyers worked against the obstructionism of the builder and the sheer idleness of the CTTT.
Our advice to others is do not buy a new unit in Sydney that has been built in the last 12 years as you will discover it has problems. Builders and the insurance know that the CTTT will do nothing and allow years of obstructionism.
In hindsight , our strata would have been better to raise the money itself rather than waste thousands of dollars in the joke that the CTTT is.
Thanks for some sanity everyone.
@JimmyT said:It’s not rocket surgery. The chairman is absent (because he hasn’t been elected yet) and the obvious choice to run the meeting until the new chair is elected is the secretary although it could be anybody the meeting chooses. Not even the geniuses at CTTT would uphold a claim that the chairman wasn’t properly elected because there wasn’t a nomination in the motion of vacation of the chair.
If it makes you happy, I’ll repeat my second suggestion that there should be two motions, one to vacate the chair, another to elect a new chairperson. That’s it. Take the legal debate elsewhere if you want to keep going with it.
Thanks Jimmy
@jeff.f said:
Thanks so much for the comments. To clarify, the trees with overhanging trees are neither planted on Common Property or within an individual Lot. They’re on a neighbour’s property – technically it would be their responsibility to trim overhanging tree branches.However, on the basis that our neighbour(s) won’t pay for that cost – whose responsibility would it be (the Owners Corporation, or the individual Lot owner)?
jeff.f
I still recommend that you go to the local Council first because it is your neighbours who ‘own’ the trees. You can ask the tree inspector to come out and look at the trees and they may have a cost. (I think it cost me $20 to submit the form when I was arguing that another tree on my property was safe.)
Even if an approach by you, or your E.C. to them has not been successful with the neighbours, the local Council will make sure that the work is done safely.
If you know that Council has sent the neighbours a letter to comply, keep following up if you are not approached by a tree lopping company within a few weeks.
Just be sure that they are not ‘cowboys’ without any insurance or real knowledge of lopping trees safely.
Owners should not have to pay to have it done when it is not on your property.
In a sense of good neighbourliness, you could offer to pay half, or a portion if you think your neighbours are not able to afford the work. I suspect it would be your cost then.
@Whale said:
I am a little confused by the wording of your post, but assuming that the trees are on your Strata Plan, it matters not whether they’re on Common Property or on any part of a Lot, all growth above the strata limit (vertical) is the responsibility of the Owners Corporation.Individual Lot Owners do have a responsibility to keep the height of any and all trees / shrubs on their Lot below the strata limit, so provided they’ve been planted since the Registration of the Plan as opposed to being existing trees that were left in place during the Development, you may be able to obtain a contribution towards trimming costs from the Lot Owners concerned – but that would of course be voluntary.
Whale, the way I read Jeff.f’s post is that the trees with falling (or potentially falling) branches are in adjoining properties to the strata development.
If it were me I would approach the local council tree person and submit that the trees are dangerous and people using their courtyards could be injured or killed by falling branches.
The council should send out their tree inspector and if he or she agrees that the trees are dangerous, then a letter should be sent to the owner/s of the trees asking them to either trim them or cut them down.
I know because when I had a house and garden one of my trees was overhanging a neighbours garden and I had to lop several very large branches. An arborist charged me almost $2,000 to do the job in suburban Sydney.
Hopefully your neighbours will pay the cost for you and the other strata owners.
All the best.
I am not a dog hater, very far from it. I would have 2 or 3 dogs in a heartbeat if I lived in a suitable property and had the time to properly exercise and manage them.
I liked training dogs and I enjoy seeing well trained and obedient dogs that behave in the correct and natural way that is better for both master and dog which is submissive not dominant. Dogs are servants of man and just because they look “cute” we forget that these are animals whose original ancestor was the domesticated wolf, with all that that entails.
Thumbs UP Sloan.
I agree.There is a small yappy dog in the villa behind me, and when it is out in the yard it yaps constantly. They seem to put it our around dinner time in the evening and it is still yapping after 10pm, especially if I turn on my bathroom light.
I feel sorry for the poor dog as it is very distressed, but hard on the neighbours.
JimmyT said:
Sloan
You can’t make assumptions about people’s behaviour, even based on your own experiences. These guys are trying to do the right thing or they wouldn’t have asked the question in the first place.
But you do have a point about leaving dogs on their own.
Answer: Get two dogs!
Jimmy, two cats keep themselves company, if they are not sleeping all day. Better for a unit if the owners do not have time to exercise dogs.
I suggest your leg is being pulled!
Housing NSW would not put a family of 8 into a two bedroom appartment.
I do not know where you live but I suggest you ask for proof from whoever told you about it. It should be easy to contact the agent to confirm if the story is true.
This sounds more like one of those racist stories that go around because some NIMBY people get upset about Dept of Housing residents or refugees moving into their area.
If there is a rogue landlord only concerned about getting rent from a large family, then that is another matter and I would report to the local council.
Sydney city council is supposed to be cracking down on landlords of high rise units who cram four overseas students into each bedroom of their unit.
jonmobrien said:
superjames, despite being “famous” now, your original post was extremely lacking in any detail and your follow-up post shed no further light on your situation.
To have “just started renting out a small unit”, did you …
[see full posting above …]
Cheers,
Jono.Hey Jono, what a great answer. I look forward to reading a lot more from you in Flat Chat.
Whale said:
……I'm contemplating whether to use trickery in order to elicit attendance by placing an Item on the Agenda to increase the Levies by some outlandish percentage, ……
Reading the posts on this topic I was thinking the same thing myself.
Maybe you need to check with the Strata Manager to be sure you have the latest contact details for the Owners.
As Secretary, send out the Agenda Items as usual, with a proposal for a huge increase of levies, or turning common property into a child care centre or something outlandish.
Later, enlist the help of another caring Owner, and from a hotmail address send an email, or door knock offering to take on proxies to vote at the AGM!!!
That would sure stir people up.
pigsrings said:
I am a renter. My last rental property I had bathroom plumbing problems and was threatened by the owners corporation that the costs of plumbing repairs were going to be charged to the owner of the premises because I kept a dog on the premises without permission (another issue all together). I challenged how they were going to prove the hair in the pipes were dog hair …
How hairy are you or your dog?
Seriously, I think the owner needs to get the drain unblocked, and see if there are tree roots or other problems outside your place, especially if the drain was backing up in the first couple of months you were there.
If there are no roots or cracked or misplaced pipes, the plumber can show you what they found in the sewer. More likely, residents in the building have flushed all manner of objects, not what is supposed to be flushed, and more probably there could be baby and/or sanitary napkins, pet litter, paper towels, other garbage that should not be flushed.
If a person did block the sewer by flushing objects that are not meant to be flushed, then I think they should have to pay the cost of getting the objects out of the sewer.
If there are pipe problems, or tree roots inside the property then the Owners Corp should pay. If outside the property ????
I work in an old building in Surry Hills that has a huge plane tree on the front footpath. The roots of the tree cracked the sewer pipe and pushed it up causing sewerage to build up. Our organisation had to pay a plumber to re-line our pipe, excavate under the footpath, under the road and then replace the pipes under the tree roots under the street.
superjames said:
I have just started renting out a small unit to some tenants and am new to the wonderful world of being a landlord. A few weeks after moving in, the tenants have contacted me through the real estate agent requesting the following repairs:
- one of the electricity power points doesn't work
- one of the lights doesn't seem to work
- the fan thingy above the stove is missing a couple of grill thingies
As I understand it, landlords are required to ensure the property is in a reasonable state of repair. This property is a new unit in generally excellent condition and seems to me clearly to be in a reasonable state of repair. The repairs seem to be pretty minor and unless there's some other problem it seems a bit unreasonable for me to have to spend a few hundred dollars fixing these things.
Is this approach correct? Any guidance from the rental / strata gurus would be much appreciated! Thanks
If it is a new unit I suggest having a building inspection (if you did not get one before you purchased), and get back to the developer/builder quickly so that hopefully, even the “minor” problems are fixed to new condition.
As you will see from other forums, once a few years goes by, you have next to no chance of getting the builder/developer to repair anything.
If your unit is in NSW, recent changes to law has meant that your tenants have more rights so it is good 'insurance' to have the inspection and know if there are any major problems as well as the 'minor' ones.
unit owner said:
There is the owner of the ground floor who uses the garden of the strata common property as exclusive rights ( i do not know who gave them that right).The developer planned palm trees which are growing thick and tall and start blocking the views of our apartment.Can we ask for them to replace the trees (not protected ) with other trees or plans which do not grow so high .
Can we still enjoy the views , which make us buy the unit when we first seen it?
Not sure if you are talking about plum or palm trees,* but some varieties of palm trees are dangerous because whole fronds/branches will drop off when they die.
It is an OH&S issue because once the trees have grown too tall to trim, the dead fronds/branches drop off. If hit, would the resident with exclusive use sue the Owners Corporation?
I was also told that cockroaches breed in some palm trees but have no proof of that.
*My fault – the original post was misspelt “pulm” in the heading. I assumed plum when I fixed it. Not too bright that day. -JT