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Topic
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I live in a strata complex of 60+ townhouses; the owner’s corporation hired a fencing company to replace the original 30+ year old pre-painted metal fence around the courtyards of the townhouses in the last half of last year with new Colorbond fencing. About 10 townhouses have a wooden fence and were not replaced.
Some of the issues the original fence had were, the fence was looking a bit tired, stains in the paint, leaning panels, pushed off original alignment, bending, buckling, paint chips, and repairs having to use other similar fencing product as the original parts were no longer available. There is nothing there that I would consider unexpected for a fence of its age.
Most of the courtyards are basically rectangular in shape at the back of a rectangular townhouse. The basic design of the fence is, the side fences are full height near the townhouse, then for the last section of the side fence the top rail is raked to a 900mm high back fence. The gate is in a corner of the courtyard, for most lots this is part of the back fence.
Some lots are on flat level ground and the job was done satisfactorily on those townhouses.
My lot has an L shaped courtyard that wraps around the side of the townhouse; this is the only L shaped courtyard in the complex. The courtyard of my townhouse has a very gentle slope to it from the front to the back; this had an impact on the way the original fence was built. The bottom rail in the original fence was raked to follow the contour of the land, and did not use any other type of material, such as timber. The original build looked neat and tidy because of this.
There are four fence runs (FR’s) that go to make up the fence around my courtyard, these being:
FR1) The fence run from the right hand side of my townhouse to the side fence. Length 3.6m approx.
FR2) The fence run that is parallel to the right hand side of my townhouse; this connects the first fence run to the back right corner of the back fence. Length 6.7m approx.
FR3) The fence run that is the back fence, this also contains the gate in the right hand corner. It also continues on past my place to form the back fence of other lots. Length 9m approx.
FR4) The fence run that is from the back left corner of my townhouse and ends at the back left corner of the back fence. This fence run is also shared with the adjoining townhouse. Length 3.3m approx.
The following issues were raised with the strata manager via email during the time the fence installer was onsite and are still unresolved. The FR number is the fence run the issue relates to.
The issues are:
1) FR2. The new fence does not properly accommodate for the slope of the land, this resulted in a large gap of approximately 19cm underneath the side fence at the back right corner. The other end of this fence run there was a gap of about 7cm. The fence installer then introduced timber to fill the gap. It was reported to the strata manager that I consider this is an unsatisfactory way of resolving the issue and needed to be fixed. It is certainly possible to rake the bottom rail on the new fence as was done with the original fence and not require the use of timber.
2) FR4. The alignment of the fence runs coming out from the back of the townhouse. This is not consistent with how the original fence would have been built around 30+ years ago. The fence run from the back of the townhouse is out of alignment by approximately 20mm by the time it gets to the back fence. The fence run is also not straight; this is verifiable using a stringline between the two end posts. The fence installer attempted to correct this on several occasions, but the issue still remains.
3) FR1. The alignment of the fence run coming out from the side of the townhouse. The new fence uses narrower posts than the original fence; however the difference in widths has not been accommodated for when positioning the first post against the wall, the alignment is out by about 8mm. The original fence post was hard up against an immovable object next to the fence. As the immovable object has not moved and the posts are narrower, there should be a gap between the new post and immovable object of about 8mm, but there is not.
4) FR1. The fence run coming out from the side of the townhouse was made up of two sections of fence with an intermediate post in middle, so each section was equal width. With the new fence the first section is 2.4m and the second section is 1.2m. This is not as aesthetically pleasing as the original fence.
There were other issues raised, such as a change to the way the gates would open, going from inward opening gates to outward opening gates, this was eventually corrected. However there are several other defects that I have noticed across the site that I would have expected to be fixed, but haven’t.
Despite requests for the defects listed to be corrected, the Strata Manager informed me that the fence installer had stated they would not be back to fix other defects as they claim all reasonable issues had been attended to.
I therefore requested that the Strata Manager should lodge a complaint with the Dept of Fair Trading on our behalf. However the Strata Managers response was to send out an agenda via email, for a paper committee meeting to the Executive Committee to approve a motion for the final payment, claiming the work had been completed and all reasonable issues resolved. The email addresses of the other Executive Committee members appeared to be hidden in the email, probably using BCC. Two Committee members are investors and do not live on site.
I disagreed with that position and sent the other Committee members an email citing a different opinion, proposing that the payment not be signed off just yet, a summary of the defects I had detected site wide, and an action plan to identify and resolve other issues. The majority of the Executive Committee voted in favour of the motion to pay the fence installer, one no response and one against (me).
Since then I have asked the Strata Manager to have these defects fixed, but the Strata Manager won’t change their position.
The time frame for the fence replacement was months, starting in August 2014, several months for the installation and some rectification work, with the paper committee meeting occurring in December 2014.
Both Colorbond and other pre-painted metal fencing manufacturers provide installation guides, available on the web via a Google search. Reading those guides and comparing them to how this fencing job was done, make you realise what is possible, but was not done.
So here I am writing this post, looking for suggestions on what to do next.
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Replies
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Blueman – in the first instance the replacement of fences between individual townhouses is usually the responsibility of the Owners concerned, or of the Owners Corporation and the Owner/s if the fence adjoins Common Property, or of the Owners Corporation (O/C) and the Owner of an adjoining property if it’s a boundary fence (i.e. between the Strata Plan and the property next door).
So unless your Plan is atypical, and for some reason the fences between townhouses are shown as Common Property (i.e. thick black as opposed to dashed or thin lines) on the Strata Title Plan, then I don’t know why the Strata Manager arranged for and now wishes to pay for the fencer’s works from the O/C’s funds.
Notwithstanding any of the above, your own investigations would have no doubt revealed that a colourbond™ style fence can be installed with sloping panels to accommodate the local topography, and so there may be an “argument” that fencer shouldn’t be paid until such time as whoever it is that’s paying is satisfied with the work in its entirety.
The only problem that I can foresee, and which regrettably may be the case, would be where the Strata Manger as opposed to the O/C has simply selected a fencer who’s known to them, and without any specification or a quotation outlining the agreed scope-of-work, has just given them the go ahead.
As your Strata Manager is pushing for an approval to pay the fencer, I’m guessing that my assumptions about who organised the work is correct, and whilst you’re nonetheless correct by insisting that the Executive Committee shouldn’t approve the fencer’s payment until such time as it’s satisfied with the work, the “argument” around that position is that it may be difficult to defend unless there was an agreed scope-of-work and that either hasn’t been followed or there are defects in workmanship as opposed to just with that (scope).
It may well be prudent for the E/C to list the items that it would like to see corrected or changed, to request the fencer to provide a price to rectify those, and to try negotiating a price around that; clear defects excepted.
Blueman – it would have saved me some time if I had read your initial post more closely, and noted that a majority of E/C Members have approved payment of the fencer’s invoice.
Probably like you, they’re happy for the Sinking Fund to be used to pay for the costs of their fences, and that’s all well and good until such time as one of their fences is damaged and your O/C is expected to also pay for that, or worse still when a legitimate expense occurs and there’s insufficient money in the Sinking Fund to pay for it!
Exercises of expedience such as this really annoy me, as the costs of preparing a proper scope-of-work, a more detailed quotation for each Lot, and properly convening an E/C Meeting to consider those (including providing a written Agenda to each Owner 72 hours in advance) would add about 5% to the total cost of the whole exercise.
Anyway I’ve read your last post more closely this time, and as the issue is “more or less resolved”, I guess this puts and end to it!
Blueman – as the fencer would have worked everything out on a per metre rate for each length / variation of height etc, I don’t accept that it would have been a big job to quote individual owners; they do that all the time!
Further, the total costs of the job could have been paid by the Strata Manager, and the individual components recovered by showing the cost as a separate line item on Owners’ next Levy Contributions Invoice.
All that’s immaterial now, but I would, if only for future reference, check the Strata Title Plan just to see if yours is for some reason atypical, in that dividing fences between Lots are shown as thick black lines and therefore denote that they’re Common Property.
So what to do about what you call “defects”?
I don’t think that issues such as minor discrepancies in the alignment of the new fence relative to the original, different post positions, and stepped panels are “defects”, in fact I think they’re all about the fact that there was no detailed specification or scope-of-work provided.
Sure, an experienced fencer should have known better, so after perhaps checking their Licence details with the Department of Fair Trading (in NSW), and if there’s noting untoward there, then I come back to the point of your E/C arranging with its Strata Manager to have the fencer quote to have the fence meet expectations, and then try to negotiate around that.
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