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One of our owners, who happens to be on the Exec Committee, wants to modernise his unit by removing the wall between kitchen and lounge/dining area. The wall helps support the units above. Said owner has obtained (for $500) an engineer’s plan showing how it can be done safely.
It strikes me that the wall is common property and that any change to it has to be done under the direct control of the O.C. however much that might cost. After all, if walls in the unit upstairs crack afterwards, the O.C. will have to repair them. Recovering from the builder and the engineer will be difficult if ownership has changed and/or if the owner doesn’t feel inclined to pursue them.
Why should the other Exec Committee members, who hold the common property in trust for the O.C., have to spend their time organising this project? It’s not necessary and it’s for the benefit of just one owner.
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I’m not 100 percent sure that the wall is common property. have a look at the original plan and see if it is a thick black line (which means it is).
This in to something that should be rushed into. I’m pretty sure you will need a DA from your local council (and don’t fall for the “complying development” nonsense – builders hand out certificates as if they were lollies).
It’s up to the owner who wants to make the changes to make the running and your committee shouldn’t approve anything unless there are guarantees tied to the lot – ie, if anything goes wrong, subsequent owners of that lo have to pay for it.
Talk to YOUR CHOICE of strata lawyer at the applicant’s expense. Structure your approval so that the applicant is fully liable now and in the future and that the choice of surveyors is yours. If they refuse, simply refuse to give them permission and, if necessary, seek interim orders at NCAT to prevent them doing the work.
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.
Why should the other Exec Committee members, who hold the common property in trust for the O.C., have to spend their time organising this project? It’s not necessary and it’s for the benefit of just one owner.
The lot owner has the right to make improvements to his Lot. Wall removal is a common these days and if done properly you won’t have any issues. If by chance you do, he will have to fix it.
When you signed up as exec member you must have known that people will want to renovate their lot and you will need to deal with it. That’s part and parcel of being an EC member. Remember, he also gives his time on the EC to handle other business and does not get paid for it.
Don’t be a to harsh about it after all he did pay for the Lot not you.
High rise apartment buildings often have structural pillars which support the slabs. Very often the walls between the pillars are not structural. The structural pillars cannot be interfered with but the walls, in most cases, can be.
I am planning to renovate my 40 year high rise apartment in Brisbane soon and this includes removing a wall between kitchen and lounge room. I obtained a structural engineers report which cost me $700. The report indicated that the wall was not structural.
My building by-laws indicated that the engineer’s report and the scope of works needed to be submitted to the body corporate before the renovations take place. If the engineer’s report, which was undertaken by highly skilled professionals, gave the ‘all clear’ then the body corporate committee (who are not highly skilled structural engineers) cannot overturn it. The committee would be acting unreasonably if they were to do so.
Committees must be mindful of the scope and limitations of their responsibilities.
Yes, they should and that involves deferring their decision to a higher authority if they are not sure.
I live in an apartment building where one owner removed a room, meaning his lounge room (which he wanted to expand so he could have bigger parties – seriously!) was now next to my bedroom. He got a builder to say that this was all OK and the council, even though their regs say you have to have planning permission to change the configuration of a flat, went along with it because the builder said it was a compliant development.
The strata committee went along with it because the council said it was OK. The noise was so bad I sold the flat.
My point is that removing a wall isn’t just about supporting the ceiling. It may mean that “active” rooms are suddenly next to “passive” rooms – a lounge is suddenly next to a neighbours bedroom whereas most bedrooms are next to bedrooms in modern apartment blocks.
So you are right about strata committees not being experts – that’s why they should make absolutely sure before they permit something that is going to benefit one owner to the detriment of another.
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.
Re your comment about being forced to sell up …. It sounds as though you would not have had a happy time living next door to your partying neighbour whether the wall was removed or not.
The original question from ‘chesswood’ was about structural walls and it appears that your partying neighbour jumped through the necessary ‘hoops’ with regard to the wall removal, (although I personally would have requested a structural engineer’s report rather than rely on a report by a builder).
The party noise issue that you experienced is a totally separate issue and one that had its own processes and remedies via by-law infringement notices etc. Did you try this avenue before you moved?
Although building designs endeavour to have quiet areas of Lots abutting each other both vertically and laterally, as you suggested, there is no mandatory requirement to retain a bedroom as a bedroom. A bedroom could be re-purposed and changed to a playroom or a rumpus room or a lounge room. That is for the Lot owner to decide and not the neighbouring Lot owner.
Also, a crying baby in an adjacent Lot’s bedroom as an immediate neighbour, or a loud snorer, or an argumentative couple may create similar noise problems.
What to do about these types of noises that are not covered by by-laws or legislative regulations? There are no remedies except for the following: Speak to the neighbour; buy earplugs; install sound proof particle board insulation in your Lot; move your own bedroom to another quieter room ….. or move.
@proudsceptic said:
Re your comment about being forced to sell up …. It sounds as though you would not have had a happy time living next door to your partying neighbour whether the wall was removed or not.I am aware of the options open to me to deal with a noisy neighbour. But there were several other points that I made here that are relevant to this discussion.
The first is that by removing the bedroom, my neighbour was removing a noise buffer from his intended activity.
Secondly, by creating more “party room”, the neighbour was effectively planning to increase the noise that no longer had a buffer.
… I personally would have requested a structural engineer’s report rather than rely on a report by a builder …
Bully for you! But your request would have been rejected because it had no legal basis. Regardless of your thoughts about change of layout, our local council’s planning regulations state that plans to change the configuration of an apartment require a DA.
However, this resident – a big wheel in real estate – found it very easy to get a builder who would sign a certificate of Complying Development that the council couldn’t even check.
Council told me that if I had a problem I should pursue the builder as they had signed the certificate. Once a certificate of complying development is issued, they said, Council Planning has no further say in the matter (unless, presumably, you can prove it was fraudulent).
The strata committee has to take some share of the blame here as they didn’t press the case on whether the change of layout was appropriate.
Finally, noise complaints against this neighbour are proceeding through Fair Trading and NCAT and I have to admit it wasn’t the only reason for selling. But it did make the decision a lot easier.
I totally disagree that the removal of walls to change the layout of an apartment and noise issues are totally separate. Just ask anyone who discovers their upstairs neighbour has relocated their bathroom to above their bedroom.
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.
With all due respect you may have misread my comment about the noise issue of the adjoining apartment wall to your apartment being separate from the structural issue. I was specifically referring to your particular issue and not noise in general.
The example that you cited of an upstairs bathroom being re situated in a Lot above the bedroom of a lower Lot has extended the issue further than the original issue.
The original issue merely concerned removing a wall between a kitchen and a lounge room whereas your example went further than that. Your extended example may cause confusion to the readers of this site.
Re-locating a bathroom would trigger more than structural change by-laws issues. It would trigger other issues such as flooring types, which usually has its own by-law provision. It would also trigger common property issues with plumbing, and possibly common property slab and wall intrusions.
It is very unlikely that a downstairs Lot Owner would not be aware of a bathroom being installed above your bedroom before this renovation actually occurred.
Even if a committee was to approve such a change then this would be noted in the Minutes. The Minutes should be supplied to all Lot Owners in a timely manner – usually 7 to 10 days after the Meeting. Within that time frame no action is to be taken so as to allow any affected Lot Owner to mount a challenge to the Committee decision.
It is the Lot Owner’s responsibility to read the Minutes to ensure that the Committee is acting reasonably in decisions that impact the Lot Owner.
If it is the opinion of any Lot Owner that they will be negatively impacted by any of the Committee’s decisions made at a Committee Meeting, or that the Committee has not acted reasonably in making that decision, then the Lot Owner can challenge the Committee decision.
It is the responsibility of the Lot Owner concerned to provide evidence to the Committee that the proposed work would cause a nuisance, hazard or interfere unreasonably with the use or enjoyment of their Lot.
I live in QLD where a Committee and Body Corporate’s responsibility to “act reasonably” is covered in at two sections of the BCCMA.
Incidentally, in QLD it would possibly be unreasonable for a Committee to deny an upstairs Lot Owner an approval to lay a tiled floor merely based on noise from the tiled floor if the Lot Owner acknowledged that they were prepared to undertake and comply with all acoustic impact systems and to provide the maximum underlay and floor preparation to minimize any noise transference emanating from their Lot.
This forum is intended to discuss issues that exist in the real world and predominantly in NSW. The scenario you have outlined above, where everybody does exactly as they are supposed to, when they are supposed to, may exist in Queensland (although I doubt it does in every case). It certainly is a relatively rare event here.
There is a obligation, implied at the very least, for strata committees to act reasonably. If they all did so this website and the related newspaper column would not exist.
I used the example of a bathroom being relocated because it has happened and there are examples of that somewhere deep in the archives of this website. It can occur, for instance, when the downstairs unit is tenanted and its owner is unaware of the details work being done upstairs, or where someone has bought in after the work being done and it either hasn’t been properly documented or the strata search hasn’t revealed the implications of work done some time before.
Believe it or not, people will sell their unit and move on rather than fight for their rights ad risk the problems being documented and that affecting the value of their property.
So, forgive me, but I don’t think there is anything misleading about describing real scenarios that have actually occurred where committees and authorities have only looked at one aspect of a renovation and not considered its impact on other residents.
And on that note, I think this discussion has run its course. Flat Chat out.
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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