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Our strata building is due for major renovations and may become uninsured as a result. Question is, if we don’t have common property insurance will the building need to be vacated.
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The NSW strata Act says the owners corporation “must insure the building and keep the building insured …” and that has to be your focus, rather than worrying aboutvacating the building.
Your insurer may have a policy to cover the renovations or might even say you will be covered anyway.
Leaving the building uninsured, especially when it is undergoing major physical changes, isn’t just a breach of strata law (with a $550 max. fine), it is a huge risk should anything go wrong and a member of the public, for instance, is injured or killed.
If that happened, owners would be personally liable for their share of what could be very serious financial damages claims.
Get insurance.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
We have insurance in place with the only insurer of about a dozen our broker approached. This last insurer said we need to get the building fixed or they will withdraw as well. The OC is so dysfunctional that the remedial works is constantly delayed.
If no insurance is available is the building required to be evacuated under the legislation?
If it’s a dysfunctional committee that’s causing the problem, that’s also where the answer to this lies.
Run a case through Fair Trading and NCAT under section 232 (a) and (2) (below) for failure to comply with their statutory duties. Then run another case under Section 238 to have the backsliders and recalcitrants kicked off the committee for good.
To answer your question, NCAT will only fine the OC, but your local council might decide that living in an uninsured building is dangerous and declare the block unfit for habitation. It’d say it’s a long shot but they have the power to do that where NCAT doesn’t.
232 Orders to settle disputes or rectify complaints(1) Orders relating to complaints and disputesThe Tribunal may, on application by an interested person, original owner or building manager, make an order to settle a complaint or dispute about …
(e) an exercise of, or failure to exercise, a function conferred or imposed by or under this Act or the by-laws of a strata scheme,
(2) Failure to exercise a function
For the purposes of this section, an owners corporation, strata committee or building management committee is taken not to have exercised a function if—
(a) it decides not to exercise the function, or
(b) application is made to it to exercise the function and it fails for 2 months after the making of the application to exercise the function in accordance with the application or to inform the applicant that it has decided not to exercise the function in accordance with the application.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
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