Fire Audit Work Woes – Who’s responsible?

Dear All,

Our building of 12 Lots was recently given an order by Council to conduct a Fire Audit. We have followed the recommendations and now have a list of work to do. Surprisingly, the list isn’t too bad for a block that was built in the 1970’s.

Some of this work includes:

– Replacement of general power outlets within units.

– Installation of safety switches within units.

– Installation of hard wired smoke alarms. 

Some units did not require this work as it had already been done and certified during their renovations. Most units in the building needed to do this work. After researching, the work above is of the Lot Owner’s responsibility and they should be paying for it themselves. 

When this work was occurring, I asked the strata manager for advice, who said that we should stick with one/two qualified contractors to do all the work to ensure that it is done according to standards. He also said that we could charge Lot Owners for the individual work on their levies. Unfortunately, this information was given in a phone call, yet he continued to imply this in email.

This was all fine until he completely denied saying this and has now said that it can’t be done. He says that due to it being for a Council Order, that strata now must accept responsibility and pay for all the work, even if it is of Lot Owner responsibility.

This just doesn’t make sense. Owner’s who don’t need to do the above work are annoyed and don’t want to be paying for other Lot Owner’s work. Most of the work has been completed as we thought that we could get the money recovered from owners, but as you can see, we are now in a pickle.

Has anyone had a similar experience to this? I feel like we may need to seek legal advice regarding the payment situation. We obviously can’t trust the strata manager.

Thank you in advance for any responses.