Re: Unreasonable by-law?

Thanks PeterC, RL & Whale, 

It’s somewhat gratifying to be hear that someone else thinks that our strata are being a bit difficult. (It’s our first experience actually dealing with strata…) 

I’m taking your advice, Whale, and seeking out the advice of an insured acoustical engineer. Does anyone have someone that they trust and would recommend? And yes, our flooring guy was very keen to go ahead without the approval, but I think it makes sense to put as much effort in as possible to do the right thing. We honestly wouldn’t even be considering it if we thought that it would be noisy for the neighbours. 

Now the issue with the floor approval is really being dwarfed by another problem. We submitted an application for renovation with the EC, to renovate the bathroom and kitchen. This would involve re-tiling in the bathroom and balcony, put not moving any of the plumbing or electrical. Of course, this involves the common property because of the re-tiling, and we submitted details of our builder’s insurance and a letter stating that our plumber would sign off and guarantee the water-proofing. We were told we had to include scale detailed drawings of all the cabinetry from the builder, because the scale ones that we had drawn ourselves (damn carefully) weren’t good enough. Fine. And then that we had to have a structural engineer examine the tiles on the balcony and approve the new tile choice, in case the new tiles were too high and would case the railing to be too low, or be so heavy as to make the balcony structurally unsound. So fine. We did that too. 

And now, we are being told that the EC cannot under any circumstances, no matter what the engineer or plumber says, approve any renovations that alter common property without an AGM. Which is in April. 

What do we do now??? Even without the flooring drama, we’re being told we can’t renovate anything at all until next April (assuming it gets approved!)