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Other units not having an issue doesn’t lessen the problem. If the OC doesn’t feel that they should do anything then it is left up to the owner to obtain the evidence and ways of rectifying, and take that to the tribunal, and they can then decide whether it is an OC problem, which is likely because the water is coming through the common property.
So, it seems that the problem are that engineers are specifying excessive requirements, and then there aren’t enough waterproofers so they are all pushing the prices up. One quote for our remediation was half of what would be charged to build a whole new block of units.
My reading of the rules is that bathrooms are exempt unless there is more than one dwelling, in which case the paper work needs to be done. I haven’t gone through all the rules, but one difficult requirement is that waterproofing has to be done as a single sheet. Much fun because the bathrooms in mystery strata have tiles to the ceiling, resulting in a big job, to fix what is needed which is probably just the base of the shower. Or is that interpretation correct?
If something fails in the structure, that isn’t caused by an occupier, then it is the owners corporation responsibility.
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The cost came in at a projected $120K to lift all the tiles, replace the waterproofing and re-tile (new tiles) and by the way, replace the balustrade because it was 10cm short of current standards. For a leak? The explanation was that the job could only be done under the supervision of an engineer because it involved waterproofing, and the balustrade came into the picture because the tiles came up to the lower edge of the balustrade which brought it into the scope of works. Needless to say, we didn’t go ahead with that job. Rather, we had the whole terrace re-grouted at a cost of $19K. So far, no further leakage has been reported. Something is seriously wrong here.
You are probably not allowed to do that anymore. The whole thing is ridiculous. We have 40 leaking bathrooms, but all of them will be the shower. We could replace the grout for about $1000 a shower, or retile the shower for $5,000 but that is not allowed, we have to remove all tiles in the bathroom, which means removing the fixtures, seal the whole bathroom and replace the tiles and fixtures at at least $30,000 per bathroom. I’m not certain what happens if we have one badly leaking shower because that puts us above the $5K limit.
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One thing about these remediations is that the costs are so high that very few strata will be able to get enough votes to see them go ahead, and that means we are at the mercy of the developers.
If we assume $650k for a sale price per unit, and remediation costs of $200k, developers costs of $90k (loan, stamp duty, marketing) and profit of $60k, that makes their buying price about $300k. Land valuation is $140k. Is that a reasonable breakdown of the price, or is a developer just going to offer the land valuation and make lots of money? Or maybe somewhere in between.
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One question is whether anyone has made or is likely to make this a political issue. Does the OCN have any position on this? Or maybe the opposition? Maybe the government is getting worried? I sent an e-mail to my local member about Christmas and got a reply that they were all very busy, and nothing since. Where I am, if they checked for waterproofing problems in unit blocks it would range from a few units to we have to redo every balcony.
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I’d love to see $80,000, our best quote is $200,000 per lot. We are seeking more quotes.
There are obvious problems with what is happening. We have about 40 bathrooms that have water leakage. If it was a home then we would pay about a $1,000 to use something like Megaseal or retile the shower at about $5000, and it would usually bey fix any problems.. The regulations say that the waterproofing has to be one continuous seal, so all fixtures are to be removed, all tiles removed and the sealing and retiling. This was something like $30-40k per bathroom and they aren’t big bathrooms.
Balconies are a disaster. They are to be stripped back to concrete, checked for concrete cancer and then everything is replaced. Brick walls on balconies need to replaced, as now required to be reinforced.
When I first read the tender, I thought the engineers response to all problems was to replace everything, but that is what they have to do.
Anyway, many of our owners couldn’t afford to pay even $50-100k, so we are all going to be removed kicking and screaming from the building, due to an appointed strata manager. It isn’t going to be nice when eventually we have to do everything and the only choice is to sell to a developer at less than half what people have paid.
The thing about mobile towers is that they don’t want massive power levels at ground near the tower. Instead it is aimed in a beam, in the vertical plane, It would not be difficult to check the levels near a tower, and compare them to levels in a room with multiple mobile phones.
What is going to happen is that as we get inflation under control there will be less demand in the system. People will have less money, so they will do less of living on their own in 2 bedroom units. Philip Lowe, former RBA governor, actually pointed that out and nobody liked it. The RBA is now in the position where they have to do something to offset government spending, so inflation remains in target, because otherwise everyone is going to start believing that our inflation rate is constrained to 3-4%. The outcome of that is that interest rates on bonds would rise.
One reason that demand is lower for relatively newer units, is that sometime after 2000 we lost the technology to waterproof units. You then get a mess as various factions in the owners form who feel that they have a solution. Sorry, but the only solution is to spend 1 to 2 hundred thousand, and if you can’t afford it then let the bank deal with your negative equity.
Worth remembering that excess funds can only be returned to owners (in NSW) if there is a unanimous vote (as in, no votes against) to do so.
That could be a bit of a problem. What I was thinking of was more along the line of with a 50 lot building was to have $20k as a buffer. Having seen plumbing jobs take $10k because of difficulties finding the leak and then diverting the flow and then patching up the places where they gained access, it is better than suddenly needing a special levy.
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In NSW it is possible to do this https://www.bannermans.com.au/library/change-of-unit-entitlements/
It seems that unit entitlements are going to usually based on valuation, and it is probable that valuations of town houses will be greater and so they pay more.
In NSW there is no problem, and I expect the same in Queensland. Strata hasn’t stolen any money, it is shared by the owners. The only situation I would be concerned is if the admin funds became ridiculous.
The usual strata magement agreement allows for the strata manager to perform many of the functions of the committee. At the AGM there should be appointment of a new committee. Otherwise it is off to NCAT.
A couple of points. There are already restrictions on keeping chemicals other than ones that are used for domestic cleaning in units, so people don’t have complete control over what happens in their units. Lihtium ion batteries will spontaneously combust, but it is much less likely than other causes. The chances of it happening are greater when being charged, especially if there is overcharging, and when they are poorly manufactured. That is the big problem with some of the e-bikes, they have cheap and nasty batteries and cheap charging circuitry. The cars are highly regulated so problems will be rare.
I expect that the way this will work out is that if the insurance companies see a reasonably increased risk, then they will be telling government that either the price of insurance will increase or there need to be more rules.
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