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About 2 years ago we paid $330k for a replacement for 6 floors. At the time it was very difficult to get quotes, only 2 of the majors quoted. It was also a full replacement and we had the controller moved from the roof, where it got wet and failed, to the upper basement carpark. Our original lift is what they called a Frankenlift, it was cobbled together using parts from different manufacturers and those were lucky to last 20 years.
There is already a levy at the same cost on commercial buildings and shopping centres in those areas, unless there is an exemption. There may be other levies as there was something about Macquarie University possibly having to pay a levy of some sort. This would have a few problems, like forcing students from the western suburbs onto public transport, especially if they don’t finish until 10pm.
Did you mean failure of waterproofing IS covered by strata insurance?
I know that strata has fixed damage to units due to leakage from other units due to waterproofing failures. I know that we didn’t use insurance. Maybe insurance doesn’t cover that, or they are avoiding using insurance. The problem with using insurance is that it draws attention to any problems with the property, and they can ask for engineers reports on the full property.
One point is that strata cannot claim insurance for damage to something that is not part of the common property or that was not a result of a strata problem, for example failure of waterproofing.
In NSW you should check https://rg-guidelines.nswlrs.com.au/strata_schemes/strata_scheme_questions/common_property which explains some of the complexities.
One of the big problems is tiles. They start off usually being common property. There is a good reason for that. You don’t need to drill a hole through the concrete floor to cause problems. In most cases the tiles are placed on a waterproof lining. If that is interfered and the area is accessible to water then water will leak through into the concrete and possibly out to other units, and from experience they aren’t happy. Or it might cause concrete cancer and nobody will be happy.
Our major problem is with showers, which are onto internal walls, but these walls are classified as common property. There is a by-law that if a unit owner replaces the tiles themselves as part of a renovation then it is their responsibility for the tiles. Record keeping on renovations has been very poor. Our previous strata manager wasn’t going to win strata manager of the year.
Anyway, the reason that strata has to keep control of certain things is that they can affect the building structure. Balconies are the devils work.
Our last strata manager was incompetent. Unfortunately the statutory time to keep most of the records is 7 years, so we don’t know whether some things were put to a general meeting and rejected or whether he found it easier to ignore them. Also if things are approved at a general meeting then we have no idea. (Does Fair Trading keep the AGM minutes?) One reason for having by-laws, as they must be kept. We also have had failure of roof waterproofing, which often has a 25 year warranty. We have no idea, as we don’t even know who the contractor was.
I looked at sqmresearch.com.au and they use the current asking price. This has gone down in the last quarter for Sydney and Canberra but the rest are mixed. What is going to happen is that employment is going to reduce. Hours worked per person is already going down and should for at least the next 6 months. That will result in substantial reduction in working hours for 1-2% of the workforce. We are also going to see governments and their private partners getting a bit more reluctant to take on debt. It is getting expensive and there is a reasonable amount of it. That means fewer jobs. It also means lower immigration which flows onto the need for housing and construction jobs.
The year ahead is not going to be pleasant, especially if your name is Albanese, although he has a fully owned big house.
SQMresearch sqmresearch.com.au tracks asking prices for real estate. Units don’t seem to be affected much, but houses are decreasing. Whether this is from rate rises or from tax changes is debatable. The Australian economy is a bit of a mystery. While unemployment increased, the average hours worked by all adults increased. The RBA will be watching what the employment figures are when they come out this week. What the RBA is mainly trying to do is to reduce new borrowing, which is increasing at a ridiculous rate, but they will expect other effects due to lower demand.
Running electricity to individual car spaces will be a pain. It will probably be quite expensive to run one, but unless the government provides some sort of program, they are unlikely to want to do all spaces. There are already problems in some areas due to replacing gas with electricity, adding in EV charging is going to increase the risk that substations etc will need to be upgraded. I heard about one where they wanted fast charging and just the cost of substation and wiring improvements was $375k for 24 units. It is a good time to be an electrical engineer.
I wonder if smashed avo is and similar is the sort of thing that would concern them. Say that someone gets that or an egg and bacon roll each morning for breakfast, they can easily replace it with something made at home which is probably healthier. The real problem is the things they can’t stop paying money for, like the tolls that they need because they have to take a car to work. Plus the car servicing and insurance. I suspect that the banks are getting worried because they may have significant numbers in negative equity when the inevitable recession happens, especially when you add in the costs of getting people out of their houses.
The only solution is for the building commissioner to look at some of the reports and remediation plans by engineers and the costing from builders and determine if these are reasonable. The previous comment has been asked for $200k per unit, when a typical unit build cost is about $500k. I’m starting to think that $200k per unit is standard fee for builders, or maybe for small unit blocks they make it about $3m for the total.
Water and balconies is a bad mixture, it may actually be entering the structure of the balcony and hence to the building structure. If I knew before buying what I know now, then I would not have bought a strata.
The law is very simple. The person driving the car has been negligent and it is their responsibility to pay for the repairs. If the car has comprehensive or third party property that includes the person as driver then their insurer will pay, otherwise they should pay. Now if they can’t pay then either the strata insurer or the strata can pay, and they will then attempt to recover the money. Discuss this with the strata insurer. Don’t even think of giving false information to the insurer. I would also be careful of using the [strata] insurance at all for minor damage [to common property]. The insurance company will probably just push up the premiums to cover what they paid out.
The capital works fund plan initially requires a surveyor to check the correctness, but it still doesn’t require them to be updated and checked when problems with the building are found. Our one is basically a work of fiction, even though the building defects have been known for over 10 years. The plan has never included remediation. Their is no record of the capital works plan not being followed, one is the external painting because it would be like putting lipstick on a pig.
Wait until people start losing their jobs, and that pushes rents and housing costs down. Michelle Bullock wanted to say that governments are doing things that push inflation up, so it has been left to the RBA to push it down with its one very blunt weapon.