- This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 5 months ago by .
-
Topic
-
Soon after my wife and I moved into a new apartment 8 years ago we noticed water stains and some pitting to the natural stone bathroom floor tiles outside the shower recesses of both bathrooms. Expert advice indicated that the stains and exfoliation were resulting from moisture migration due to incorrect laying of the tilles and poor surface sealing. The Owners’ Committee recognised this as a potential bulding defect as it was occurring in some 60% of the strata’s 60 bathrooms and it was they who engaged specialist consultants to assess the extent of the problems and include this amongst a broader claim for rectification of building defects. However after 4 years of mopping up after every shower and because the claim for building defects was still not yet in court and with no-one advising us at that time that bathroom floor tiles were common property, we took action in 2008 to have the shower recesses removed, the grouting replaced by Megasealed, the damaged tiles restored, repolished and resealed and the shower recesses put back into place all at a total cost to us of $2210. This was very successful and both bathrooms are in as new condition after 8 years. I made sure that these costs were submitted to the Owners’ Committee for inclusion in the final defects claim. However to my amazement I was recently advised that the lawyers for unknown reasons did not include my claim in the list of defects and therefore it was not included in the settlement now in the bank. Yet plans are being finalised to repair and in some cases totally replace tiles at much greater cost in other apartments where the damage is now much worse because of failure to take remedial action as we did years ago. As part of the common property the Owners’ Committee surely has a responsibility to repair and maintain the bathroom floor areas but in our case they are baulking at merely refunding the relatively minor costs of ensuring that the moisture staining problems would not be exacerbated. What do others think of this?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.