@Whale said:
In that way the interests of your O/C, and those of any new Owners are suitably protected by virtue of the fact that a monetary adjustment can be made at Settlement to account for the costs of the new Owner either restoring the Common Property to its pre-renovation state or for seeking and obtaining the O/C’s retrospective (and perhaps conditional) Consent to those.
I don’t think it will be as straightforward as that.
In any case, I think it’s arguable whether the “new owner” would be obliged to restore the common property to its former condition when works had been done to the common property by the precedessor in title which were not authorised in accordance with the by-laws.
I could quote cases, but it seems these tend to be too overwhelming for most here, so I will simply say that by-laws generally prohibit damage being done to the common property by an owner of occupier. In this case, assuming this to be so, any “damage” to the common property would’ve been done by the (soon to be) precedessor in title and that person (or those persons) would’ve committed a breach of the by-law. Then, the new owner would not have committed a breach of any by-law and thus may not actually be liable to make good the damage done by the precedessor in title.
I will also say that there is at least one owners corporation (probably in recongising that the above principles are probably true) sought orders in the Supreme Court restraining the sale going ahead until breaches to the by-law were made good. This (expensive) option may be worth pursuing …