#25776
TrulEConcerned
Flatchatter
Chat-starter

    Hi ScotlandX

    Thanks for your reply. Sorry for the numerous emails, but I really want (from you and Jimmy) all the ammunition I can have to go to NCAT, ideally with 1 other owner and have a chance to win. If I go alone to NCAT, NCAT and the strata mgr may reasonably consider me as a pest when really I alone want the EC’s conduct to be transparent.

    In your email, by “definitive” I assume you mean to definitively know

    a) who owns the balcony and

    b) what the problem is that has created the leaks from the balcony.

    a) There is no doubt in my solicitor’s mind the balcony belongs to the lot. This is clear from the strata map which lists the lot area as including the balcony’s area.

    b) I recently asked the Chair to support me by demanding an Extraordinary General Meeting and at such a meeting to insist on an independent investigation into the leaks. One idea of mine is to hire an engineer to investigate. Another idea is to get a plumber to subject the balcony to a pressure and or a dye test which would prove where the water leaks came from.

    Before agreeing to consider my request, the Chairman discussed the matter with the Sec. and Tsr and instead of defending the OC, she surrendered to lies and half truths. She came away from meeting them, telling me “they say the balcony is common property even though you say it isn’t.” Note, no proof was given to her that it is common, unlike me who explained to her what the solicitor told me about how strata plans are read. She could not explain to me the reasons the others had for refusing an independent assessment of the leaks.

    I always thought that if the leaks are from within the concrete slab (which is common property) it could be argued that the OC should pay for repairs or restoration. But (i) no independent person, in fact no person at all stated where the leaks came from. Hence I doubt they arise from common property. Also, if we NOW hire an independent person, who is to say the balcony has not been tampered with by special interests so as to exacerbate the leakage?; (b) even if an independent person confirmed the leaks arose from common property, surely the OC does not have to supply the lot owner with a membrane where none was previously supplied. Surely the OC’s liability, if there is one, is to ensure the leaks stop. Any economical way we can.

    In conversation with me the Chair was dead against the $5000 in rent compensation which the OC (not me) voted for at the Sept 2016 AGM, she has caved in on that as well. I told her Fair Trading thought it “odd” that such compensation is to be paid.