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In the case in our building that I referred to above the committee is not protected as they acted in bad faith. There therefore can be (and will be) sued personally for damages the moment the new Act comes into effect.
The owner who had the concrete cancer (Mr X) typically votes against the committee. The only way of describing their actions in depriving him of the use of his lot for 11 months was punishment for daring to oppose them.
Work did not even start until 4 months after the problem was reported, during which time he could not re-rent his unit.
By way of comparison in 2014 Mr X and I were on the committee and the current clowns were not. One of them had concrete cancer in his bedroom. It was almost exactly the same amount of cancer that Mr X had in his bedroom.
It took 32 days from the day the problem was reported to us until the repairs were completed. That included the time to obtain 3 quotes and wait 10 days for the successful tenderer to have staff available to commence work. The owner in question agreed in writing to that initial delay. The actual work took less than a week. That is all documented in letters, emails, quotes and photographs.
The current committee did not bother to check if the company they engaged to fix Mr X’s problem was licensed for concrete spalling repairs. They are not.
The company employed an 18-year-old labourer off the street to do the actual repairs. He admitted he had never done spalling repairs before. He was supervised by a costs estimator who admitted in writing that he had never done spalling repairs before. Between them they butchered Mr X’s unit.
They were given an engineer’s specification for the repairs before they started but did not comply with one single part of it. Far more material than was necessary was removed. They jackhammered on top of steel bars, forcing the legs of the bar chairs through the ceilings of the lot below. Floor tiles metres away from the repair were smashed and/or scratched. Walls were damaged. When they finished there was a 2mm thick layer of dust on the walls, floors and ceilings of the entire unit and in the foyer outside that they did not clean up. The committee did not check on any of their work during the 3 months the repair were under way. They merrily paid the contractor at the end without disputing the cost of the numerous issues that arose.
What should have been a simple and quick repair ended up costing the building over $94,000. Mr X lost $36,000 in rent thanks to the 11 month delay.
To add insult to injury I subsequently discovered that two weeks after the problem was first reported the committee had obtained a quote from a licensed company to do the repairs for $6,000! The committee knew the similar repair in the other owner’s unit in 2014 had cost $16,000. With a ridiculously cheap quote like that there was no reason for them to even obtain additional quotes. They should have given the go-ahead immediately.
There could not be a more glaring example of a committee acting in bad faith than this one.
Bring on the new Act!