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Re: Proudsceptic 14/11/16 at 10:49
You say:
I would investigate whether the Owner of the balcony contributed in any way to the leak in the balcony. If the lot Owner has interfered with the membrane in some way such as by piercing it then the Lot Owner would be Contributory Negligent and should pay a proportion of the repair.
I agree. This has been my chief frustration. Nothing of the sort took place and my approaches to the Chairman to tell the Sec. of my concerns seems to have fallen on deaf ears or a clueless Chairman.
The Sec (who is in charge of the EC by virtue of him dictating to the Chairman how to vote) and the Tsr (ie lot owner of the balcony) chose not to get an independent opinion on why the balcony was leaking. They instead obtained two tradesmen to quote on fixing the problem (as explained to the tradesmen no doubt by the secretary). The tradesmen would not know there was no membrane unless they were told or their investigations indicated this. The Sec may well have told the tradesmen to quote for a membrane rather than ask ‘how can the leaks be stopped in the most economical way’?
When I rang Fair Trading about this lack of transparency, I was told that for complexes under 100 units there is nothing stopping an EC obtaining a quote or more than one quote and then making the repairs they want. There is nothing requiring an independent transparent process to be undertaken, that will minimise any potential conflict of interest or what I call “corrupt conduct”.