- This topic has 2 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 3 days, 21 hours ago by .
-
Topic
-
Hi all,
Owners Corp. have been provided one quote by strata committee for “common property” repairs totalling in the order of $20K and presented an extraordinary meeting to raise levies. The most expensive item in the quote is “Cavity Flashing – remove two or three courses of brickwork as required on the external skin of brickwork” at around 16K.
Would’ve been nice to be provided with more than one quote which has been the case historically, to compare diagnoses, solution and price. The lot owner in question, who is also a member of the strata committee, has said that more than one quote would only need to be presented if the quote is above 30K as per law. This may be the case, but it still doesn’t sit right given the dollar amounts involved. This isn’t something “small.” Would Owners’ attending Fair Trading mediation be able to make a case for more than one quote and for it to be accepted or do we just have to be strong-armed into this quote that the strata committee seems bent on.
Lot owner has said that there is water ingress into their apartment where it puddles on the floor during heavy rainfall and thus the need for repair. Apparently the water is coming in where the wall meets the floor at the edge. Do the builder and engineer go on the lot owner’s word that water is coming on or does a water ingress test need to be undertaken first before proposing fixes?
Lot owner also said that water ingress is attributed to wall cracks in her property but again, no water ingress test.
Also, these are much less expensive repairs but there’s other internal cracks which according to the structural engineer are just ordinary thermal movement and nothing structural (engineer suggested fix was insert expansion joints) and patching. Lot owner is saying that because the engineer said their bedroom wall crack (internal wall) correlates to the one in the stairwell (common property), then that constitutes an overall common property repair, so even her internal wall gets classified as common property and she is not accountable for costs associated with installation of expansion joint, patching and painting for her internal wall. Does that sound right to everybody if the cause is just ordinary movement from thermal movements and the passage of time?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.