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clement – YES it does, and the fact that the Strata Manager referred the matter to the Executive Committee (E/C) makes me wonder if that’s actually a requirement under their Agency Agreement with the Owners Corporation (O/C); again, you should check that document and if necessary review the Strata Manager’s authority.
After taking over the management of our Plan after many years of it utilising the services of a Strata Manager I initially found it difficult to find tradespeople who would undertake maintenance and repairs, primarily it eventuated because they hadn’t previously been paid in a timely manner, and had additionally been embroiled in discussions between the O/C and the Strata Manager about what each understood to be the scope-of-work.
The latter is similar to your situation, and that’s why your E/C should in my opinion at least advise the builder about the reasons for its delayed authorisation of their invoice, then if possible quickly ascertain who it was that specified the ineffective scope-of-work, and should ideally then have the Strata Manager, who presumably issued the original Work Order, negotiate and document a solution with the builder that may involve further works, and a reimbursement to the O/C by the Strata Manager for those completed thus far.
The lesson here is for the E/C to in future ensure that quotations from tradespeople specify and price their proposed scope of work, and after the approval of the E/C where required, to ensure that Work Orders then issued by the Strata manager include that same specification or at least include the preamble “in accordance with your quoted scope of work ….”.
Good luck with sorting this out, and remember that bad news among the trades community travels fast and that future quotations for works at your Plan my include a hidden loading to account for possible “contingencies”.