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Topic
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Property in Melbourne.
There was a water leak in the building and the OC sent the plumber to have a look. After 2 weeks he still looking for the leak. He started to break in the walls (solid wall) on the ground floor he could see it was wet so he went up 1 floor and same answer so went up next floor found the problem. This took 3 weeks 2 plumbers and after hours costs. The OC sent the bill to me to pay. Should this be claimed to the building insurance?
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I’m hoping someone from Victoria will jump in on this because the law there is different from NSW in so many ways (yet exactly the same in others).
I guess the question is, did you do something to cause the water leak (inadvertently, obviously) such as retiling your bathroom but not having it waterproofed properly?
Or was it a fault with common property piping that happened to be serving your lot?
Simple answer – write to your committee and ask them to put in writing why they think you should pay for this and why they haven’t claimed it on building insurance. Their response may speak volumes.
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I think more details are needed.
It seems to me to be a plumbing leak investigation done by the OC which turned out to be caused by a lot owner? In those cases, an OC often tries to recover its costs.
I’m guessing that the OP themselves reported the leak to the OC or called the OC’s emergency after hours service? Sometimes OCs or Strata Managers have a policy that if a reported issue turns out not to be a common property matter they will recover the costs from the requesting lot. IME, it’s SMs that drive this policy more than the OC itself or the committee although it can be approved at each AGM.
It really should be that they recover the costs from the responsible lot. I’d agree that the committee should be contacted, especially if it was another lot that was found to be the eventual cause of the leak.
As for the insurance, some policies do cover exploratory costs. With a fair few conditions attached. You could check directly with the OC’s broker or the insurer. It’s the party who eventually has to pay for the exploratory costs – OC or lot owner – that makes a claim.