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Hi, My parents have bought into an apartment that was renovated round 2002. No body corporate approval was sought by the renovaters, nor has any approval come from the board.
The renovaters onsold the apartment to another party, and we have recently purchased from this second party. Part of the renovations involved retiling a balcony, shifting the position of sliding doors and replacing these doors with bi-folds.
It turns out that sometime around 2007 the balcony started leaking at the edge onto the balcony unit below. Ostensibly, this was due to a blocked drain and water pooling because tiles had not been laid at a correct gradient by the renovaters.
The owners that we purchased the apartment from have waterproofed the grouting surrounding the tiles, but no change to the gradient of the tiles has been effected.
I understand from the head of the body corporate that no by-law for exclusive use of common property has been struck and applied to owners of the apartment.
Are we responsible for costs of retiling and waterproofing?
Or does the Body Corporate have to pay? How do we apportion the cost if it is shared responsibility?
Can they block my application to have the renovations approved?
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Assuming you are in NSW, it seems the Owners Corporation is liable for all repairs to common property, even if the damage was caused by a previous owner. This is the great danger of OCs allowing improvements on a nod and a wink. It would be a different story if the person who caused the damage was still there but they are clearly long gone.
There is no obligation on your part to pay any of this however, if you are considering renovations anyway, you might consider getting the OC to pay for the repairs while you pay for any subsequent retiling. And that should make things easier for you when you are getting their approval for planned renovations.
By the way, depending on the extent of the renovations, you may not need OC approval but it helps a lot if you can get their OK.
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.
Forget the threat of legal action. Take a look at this previous column here. Your Owners Corporation boss (is it the chairman of the executive committee or the strata manager?) needs to get this straight with an experienced strata lawyer right now. If there is no special resolution allowing the work to go ahead and apportioning the cost of repairs and maintenance then it falls to the OC to fix the common property and any damage caused by its failutre. Futhermore, if in doing so they damage your tiles, they have to pay for that too.
And somewhere at the back of my brain there's a thought that if the OC takes legal action against an owner and the action fails, the owner doesn't have to pay their share of the cost. Has anyone else heard of that one? Or was I dreaming?
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.
Hi, Is the balcony private or Common Property? We are doing a balcony in Melbourne and we had to supply 4 quotes,
1, Balcony floor: to owner
2, Balustrade internal wall to owner
3, Balustrade external wall to OC
4, Apartment external wall to OC
“You're Confused????!!!!”
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