› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Common Property › Internal Wall Crack Repair › Current Page
The walls are common property. You will find with almost all buildings with walls of this type the plaster on the walls will develop cracks over time, due to movement in the building and weather conditions. From experience there is not much you can do about it, while you can attempt to fill a crack or plaster over it and repaint, it will just come back again. I think that is what david2708 means by “fair movement cracks”.
I had recurring cracks in my kitchen wall and the only way to stop them returning was to insert construction joins, which means you have slight grooves in the wall. But those cracks were pretty significant.
The key issue here is to determine what is causing the cracks in the wall. If it is a defect in the common property such as inadequate drainage around the area, or subfloor drainage or something like that, then it is the OC’s responsibility to investigate and take any steps necessary to rectify. However, you should get a qualified person in to do those investigations and issue a report with recommendations. That is the first step. david2708 is right – you can speculate about the reasons why a wall is cracking but that doesn’t mean anything.
There is no point in fixing a crack in the wall if the underlying cause (if any) isn’t addressed.
If there is a defect in the common property causing the issue then it is up to the OC to fix it, the fact that the property was constructed to standard at the time doesn’t mean anything in this case.