@Petard said:
Our upstairs duplex owner has informed us of their intent to convert their aged and excessively noisy dumbwaiter into a lift – to carry people instead of groceries and luggage. The dumbwaiter joins their basement garage to their floor above our apartment; the shaft runs through our bathroom. They claim that it won’t have anything to do with us, nor will require any council approval.
To quote The Castle, tell them they’re dreamin’. It’s a shame you can’t convert dumb people into elevated characters as easily.
1. This will almost certainly require council approval.
2. It will seriously affect common property and will therefore require a 75 percent vote in favour (i.e. your approval).
3. The Strata manger is right – he needs to see the detailed plans
4. The upstairs owners need to take care of all the legal expenses involved in what I think would be a series of by-laws to protect you as co-owners and the building as a whole.
5. There has to be legal protection for you from noise during the construction and daily operation of the lift written into the by-laws.
On the plus side, this may be an opportunity to sort the dumb waiter noise problem which, if I recall correctly, brought you to Flat Chat in the first place.
The good news is that because of the special resolution requirements, you have the whip hand here. Nothing happens without your say-so.
At the risk of being accused of shamelessly spruiking our sponsors, the first call I would make would be to Chris Mo’ane of IBC (because he will understand both the engineering and legal implications of all this) and the next one would be to your neighbour saying if they don’t listen to (and pay for) your choice of expert then they can keep climbing those stairs.
Why would they pay for IBC or any other consultant? Because whoever is giving them advice at the moment is an idiot who doesn’t understand the first principles of strata living or strata living.
It’s to their advantage to get properly qualified and experienced professionals in right from the start. It will save both parties money and heartache in the long term because you won’t spend the next two years at the CTTT and Supreme Court fighting over bad decisions based on irresponsible advice.
It’s as simple as that. Ask them if they’re serious and, if they are, lay out the conditions for your approval without which this plan won’t get past square one.