Renovation – owner seeks “pre-approval”

There is nothing wrong with the committee saying they approve a project (or otherwise) in principle but subject to the usual by-laws and owners corporation approvals.  Asking someone to go and get all the paperwork, by-laws and detailed design done before you even look at it is a bit much when it could say from the beginning whether or not it supports the plan and why, allowing the applicant to make adjustments or even abandon the project before they go too far down the road.  The committee can’t approve major renovations and it can only place conditions on work for minor changes.

Saying that a proposal is OK subject to approval by the Owners Corporation, including relevant by-laws, doesn’t commit either party to anything, except to consider the proposal on its merits.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by .

Seems to me you have already discovered enough to merit an approval or disapproval “in principle”.  Since, by your own admission, you don’t have the skills required to assess the plan in its current form, I don’t see what more useful information engineers reports and architectural drawing s are going to provide.

The committee doesn’t have the power to approve or deny this level of work as the owner will be affecting and maybe intruding into common property. so the owners corp have the whip hand here.

Also, I can’t see how the by-law required would be a standard one.  This is a specific project that will require specific by-laws.  I would tell the applicant to go away and come back with more information.

But, to get back to your original question, of course a strata committee can give owners an idea of whether or not a project will be approved without committing to a decision either way.

This sounds like a more general initial conversation between the owner and the committee who would need to make themself informed beforehand. The scope of works mentioned by a roof change initially sound quite major and beyond the authorization of the committee, and requiring an agm/egm vote with suitable and somewhat indepth information for all owner’s to make a decision on. If the owner or the builder really know what’s involved here would they not understand what they need provide to make a convincing, legally do-able case? If I owned there then there’s no way I’d even consider changes to that degree which will likely greatly affect the look of the whole property and the precedent it would establish without full information to sway my opinion and vote choice.

Unless the owner is a serial renovator, they may be quite shocked to learn that changes to the roof may result in them taking over ongoing  responsibility for the roof (I say “may”) because nothing is decided yet. So this early process is informative for all owners.

We are at this same stage in my block. Serial renovators have moved in and are keen to make modifications. We are in discussion about what the OC is and is not likely to approve. No point in the owner paying for professional reports for anything that is going to be an outright “no”. Taking over the roof cavity (common property) for their hot water tank is likely to be a no. Putting aircon on the roof in a non-visible area is likely to be a yes with them taking on responsibility for that section of the roof. So it’s not worth them spending any more money exploring their hot water plan, but they can confidently spend money exploring the aircon plan in more detail. In fact, their aircon plan is likely to prompt the Committee to develop a broader aircon by-law that covers all lots.

If you don’t feel confident discussing drawings, ask for a physical walk-through. If they won’t allow that, then you can hold off having any discussions about their Reno. We had to do that with our serial renovators who didn’t want to provide access for the purpose of discussing their plans. Eventually they worked out that No access = no discussion = no approval, so we’ve moved on from that particular stand-off.

Here is an analogy. I like to use analogies

If you are a house owner and you want to renovate your house, You can talk to the council town planner and get an idea of what is and is not going to fly. They will tell you that this meeting is just informative and you need to submit plans for final approval

You then have to spend money , and lots of it, getting a site survey and drawings done to then submit these to council for approval. It may not be approved the first time, so back for round two and more

What is the difference in strata? I think none

No one wants to spend money needlessly, but sometimes it has to be done.

One cant make an informed decision without adequate information. the source of information in the building industry is drawings and specifications

TrulEConcerned wrote:

He wants the committee to informally “pre-approve” his plans before he spends money on experts.

And there you have it – “informally” – the applicant is just trying to see which way the wind blows before spending money that may be wasted because the project was never going to fly in the first place.