Hi
You have touched on one of my pet issues, as a Court Strata and Construction expert you would be surprised if I told you how many court cases I have on the matter of renovation works carried out by Lot Owners with or without the Owners Corporation (OC) approval. Having a bylaw for the works which states that the lot owner will be responciable for any damage to the common property is simply not good enough.
There are so many issues that need to be considered by the OC in any Owner making an application to renovate their unit, especially in multi level buildings. Not the least of these is will the work affect the structural integrity of the building. We are giving expert opinion evidance on three matters in the Supreme Court at the moment regarding works carried out by Lot Owners on their units, that has caused major damage to the Strata Complex, two are million dollar claims. One is to do with the coring of a new floor waste in a bathroom renovation, from the coring process the operator drilled through a presessed slab structural cable which cased further pre-stressed cables to be over loaded and resulted in the slab dropping some 30mm which caused structural cracking to the internal walls, damaged the unit ceiling below, burst the water pipes in the bathroom casing flooding the a number of units and the list goes on. Another is to do with removing the carpeting to a unit and placing floor tiling with in floor heating, the issue is that the owner didn’t fit thermal or sound insulation and as such the Unit below is now used as a sauna with loud background music provided free of charge. The lot Owner of the New Sauna is suing both the lot owner above and the OC. The disappointing point about all of this litigation is that it could have been so easily avoided by applying a bit of common sense.
Some Other issues (not an exhastive list) that need to be addressed when a lot owner wants to carry out refurbishment work on their unit and in fact the OC if it wants to refurbish the Strata Complex are:-
1) are any walls being removed? Or doorways inserted? Or holes drilled through walls or the floors? Then you need to have a structural engineer to review the owners plans ( even if these plans have been done by a structural or other engineer) to advise whether the works will have any structural effect on the building.
2) will the proposed works have any effect on another unit or common propery
3) will any waterproofing membranes be damaged or new membranes fitted? If so the OC should engage a Building Consultant to inspect the new membranes to ensure the works comply and that the works are proceeding to the submitted plans
4) will the works need Council approval or the issuance of a Building Approval and subsequent certification.
5) is any floor covering being replaced, if carpet it must have a sound rated underlay, if timber flooring whether floating or full timber or tiled it must have an approved sound and heat insultaion installed, with a DBA Rating certificate issued to the OC.
6) what will be the working days and hours, what rules will be applied to the storage of materials, the Removel and/or storage of building waste, what tradesman parking will be allocated, who wil be responsible for cleaning of the common property and so forth.
RECOMMENDATIONS
A) The OC should have a set of renovation by- law/s developed that clearly details the procedure to be followed by all Owners when they wish to renovate their units. The by-law/s should deal with the above issues and others that may be specific to your OC.
B) The by-law/s should also place a number of obligations on the Lot Owner, including meeting all costs in the OC reviewing the works for approval, including engineers reviews, inspections etc.
C) The executive committee must enforce the Renovation By- law/s. No applications for renovation should be approved unless the EC is of the view that all of the requirements have been met.
The above may seem over the top or may be considered expensive to implement however we have worked with both large and small Strata Schemes to set up the protocols and by-laws and the cost has been considered minimal when weighed up against the benifits. The outcome is that the Owners most valued property (both the lot and common property) is protected, arguments are minimized between Owners regarding requests for renovations, the stress and workload on the EC is greatly reduced and all Owners know that any works are properly assessed, overseen and will result in works that maintain the structural integrity of the Strata Complex.
The value of the above can be no better proved then a recent matter that Integrated was engaged on. The Strata Complex had Just had a compulsory Strata Manager appointed, there were five court actions between various lot owners as well as lot owners suing the OC. All this litigation was to do with renovations, we meet with the Strata Manager and suggested that Integrated set up a written procedure to how applications for renovations should proceed and have a renovation by-law developed to support the procedures. Within 4 months we had all renovations approved and all litigation dropped, the Strata Manager handed over the management of the scheme back to the owners with a new EC appointed and Integrated has continued to be engaged to inspect works as they proceed and have also now dealt with another two renovation applications.
As I hope you have realized by now renovations are rarely simple and all need to be reviewed and overseen to ensure the Owners greatest asset is always the number one concern in assessing and approving renovations. Integrated has particular expertise in this area, with our business being the only Engineering and Building Consultancy specialist providing specific Strata Support Services we are the go to firm. If we can be of help even if it’s just meeting with your EC to give some direction advice (which we would do at no charge if you come to our office) please give us a call or drop us an email.
Chris Mo’ane AIAMA, MASBC- CPC
GMD Integrated Consultancy Group
Engineers and Building Consultants
Principal Sposor OCN, Corporate Members SCA and FPA