Hi Flanet,
Unfortunatly this is too common a problem. I totally agree with Jimmy’s recommendation [to consult a strata lawyer] and most strata lawyers will not bill the first meeting. However to get the best from your time with the strata lawyer try and source the following and bring it with you (as an owner you should be able to get copies from your SM)
1) Copy of your Strata Plan
2) Copy of all by-laws (This is important as many schemes have specific by-laws that set rules to what Actions Owners must take in carrying out renovations or changes to the common property, if this type of by-law exists it can be very helpful in seeking an order from the CTTT to have the non approved or non compliant work returned to its original state or have the works modified to have a sound and/or heat insulation barrier installed.
3) provide a chronology (event timeline) of events and correspondence particularly correspondence with the EC, SM and Lot Owner.
Integrated is dealing with a number of these applications with the CTTT at anyone time, however all have there own issues so the first step is get some legal advice.
Once your particular issues and complexities are know an individual action plan can be instigated, which may be a stern letter to the OC and the lot owner, the threat of making an application with the CTTT often gets things moving. An accoustic test may need to be taken, however this cost is normally avoided.
Just a quick word on mediations; a mediator can’t and will not take sides or make determinations, their role is to assist the parties to work out their issues. On items like this I always start with a site view so all parties can hear the issue and then proceed to a venue suitable for Mediations. I find a site view and in this case (noise view) is of great assistance as quite often, except for yourself, others have not experienced the issue and this process often results in statements like “we weren’t aware of the extent of noise” etc.
I hope this will be of some assistance, if you need any expert reports or testing etc ask your lawyer to get a fee proposal from us, it’s more then likely your lawyer will know us and or use us as we are the largest strata support consultancy firm and provider of expert reports for litigation
Regards Chris Mo’ane
GMD
Integrated Consultancy.