@JimmyT said:But if the renovating owner sells and the new owner doesn’t become aware until later that common property has been altered, then the repair and maintenance of the altered common property falls back on the Owners Corp ….
@kiwipaul said:Not sure that is true. As generally it’s the new owners responsibility to make sure everything is in order before purchasing the property. That why they do searches before completion to make sure everything is kosher. Also how on earth is the OC supposed to know when alterations are done within the property if owner (who did the alteration) doesn’t admit to it.
It’s true all right. Have a look HERE. The legal point is based on the simple idea that sooner or later someone has to carry the can and if the new owner says they bought in good faith and there was no way they could have known there had been unregulated changes, and the previous owner is long gone, someone has to take responsibility and that’s the Owners Corp.
Our building recently passed a by-law that said if you changed any common property in your apartment, you and subsequent owners were responsible. I’m not sure how watertight that is because we even more recently passed two “enabling” by-laws that retrospectively gave permission for the installation of bathroom tiles in two different apartments, subject to the lot owners accepting responsibility for the upkeep of the affected common property.
On the question of the by-laws costing $2000 – that’s one figure from one building and we accept it’s a bit of a rort. Changing your light on your porch probably wouldn’t need a by-law. If there was an issue with it, your EC would tell you to remove the new light and replace the old one at your own expense. Also, they could give you permission to do that based on your acceptance of their conditions (ie, you repair the light at your own expense).
There is a lot of wriggle room in the actual management of strata – where we get into trouble is when we spend too much time poring over the law – or don’t read it at all.