› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Living in strata › Water damage from fire in unit directly above › Current Page
I’d refer you to Whales’s answer regarding the Owners’ Corps responsibility to maintain and repair common property.
Regarding repairs to lot and personal property, this fall more under common law than strata law. To put this simply, someone screwed up, either actively (they had an accident) or passively (the didn’t maintain their property or equipment) and that cause d a flood that damaged your property.
If the upstairs owner or tenant (or both) is at fault, you should be sending them a bill for the damages. If they doin’t have insurance – that’s too bad …that was a gamble the took and it didn’t pay off.
And even if the OC is liable for repairs, they too should be claiming against the the person who caused it.
So you and your EC need to realise that you are on the same side and work out the most effective way of getting compensation for everyone concerned.
It’s only when the culprit refuses to pay or can’t pay that your insurance should kick in. And if the Owners Corp refuses to fix common property, threaten to run them through NCAT and see what the reaction is.
Having said that, many insurance companies will just pay small claims themselves on a swings and roundabouts basis because it is cheaper to do that and count on other insurers doing the same, than it is to fight every claim in court.
Like bad umpiring decisions in cricket – it evens out eventually.