› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Common Property › Concrete Spalling – owners corp say my responsibility to pay › Current Page
Hi All,
First post from me on this forum, and sadly my welcome to strata living is not so smooth.
In a nutshell: Newly purchased apartment has extensive spalling, Exec committee head told me they’ve decided each owner would have to pay for the spalling in their own lots, as they believe its the owners faults for not maintaining the apartments, putting down different floor underlays etc.
Here are the details:
I’ve purchased a 1970s second floor waterfront apartment at auction, settlement is next week.
There is currently work going on in the building(paid for by special levy), to fix concrete spalling on the balconies. Some upgrades are also going on including rendering etc.
The builder’s rep met myself and a rep from the exec committee today and inside of the apartment was examined for concrete spalling. All apartments along the front end of the building are being examined in the same way.
Findings:
*Bad spalling in the kitchen – the builder chipped away at the concrete – the rusted metal was very close to surface and it was literally crumbling. The builder mentioned downstairs ceiling was cracking.
*Minor spalling in living room, both bedrooms and outside bathroom in hallway.
I discussed this with the exec committee lady and she mentioned that we would have to pay for our own repairs as they are a result of owners laying magnesite flooring underlays and not maintaining their apartments.
As I understand it, the magnesite flooring underlays were put in by the building developers of most 1970s buildings, and this would at most speed up the spalling process.
Most of the lots at the front of our building have concrete cancer signs similar to ours, though ours is perhaps the worst in magnitude.
Any help will be much appreciated.
Thanks
Mark