There’s a perception among some strata residents that the Owners Corporation is like the local council.
You pay your rates (or rent and levies) and the money is spent on things for which you have no need and over which you have no control. The other side of that coin is that you then feel entitled to get as much out of them as you can.
This seems to be the case with an issue raised in the forum this week where a car driven by a member of an owner’s family bashed into a common property wall and caused substantial damage.
Now, everyone knows who the culprit was – they admitted as much – and therefore their car insurance should pay for the damage.
But it seems the strata manager has said they could just claim it on strata insurance and then the car owner won’t have to pay a cent.
So either way, an insurance company has to fork out. What’s the problem with that?
Well, it will be significant if the strata scheme’s insurance has a hefty excess on their policy. Even if it doesn’t, all these issues are filed away and might come into play when the strata insurance premiums are next reviewed.
Maybe the owner’s car insurance also has a substantial excess, to the strata manager and committee are doing them a favour.
The point is, everything has a cost and a consequence and whatever you do that financially affects the faceless bureaucrats of the local council, or the busybodies on the committee, eventually comes back to you and your neighbours.
Or are the strata manager and committee just being neighbourly? You can chip in with your tales of excess HERE.
Also on the Forum this week, an Flatchatter’s upstairs neighbour’s balcony is leaking on to theirs. Who pays for the repairs? That’s HERE.
And the question of being charged $100 a pop for pet applications has taken a new twist HERE and HERE.
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