No funds available to replace failing villa roofs

You can possibly help matters along by asking your strata manager to arrange a few quotes because replacing one or more roofs will be a large project.

The quotes will provide the necessary data to confirm that insufficient funds are available, and at the very least your strata committee will know what the owners’ corporation is up for and can discuss whether they want to raise a special levy or save up for this work through increased levies over time.  Depending on how well everyone knows and trusts each other, you may be able to have a conversation about whether it’s better to save up over time (recognising that if a roof starts leaking, it will have to be addressed with whatever funds have been saved and also the cost of doing the work will increase while you save), or hit everyone with a special levy.  If some can’t pay, you can discuss payment plans for those individuals.

It sounds like there is no capital works plan in place, because if there was then this and other items would be on the plan and  your levies would be set in accordance with the planned schedule of works.  What on earth is your strata manager doing if he/she hasn’t been advising you to prepare a plan?  Clause 80 of the Strata Schemes Management Act says that it’s a requirement to have a 10 year plan that is reviewed every 5 years as a minimum.  It doesn’t have to be a formal, professional plan.  My unit block has a spreadsheet with a list of jobs, the year we expect to do the work and estimates prepared by Committee members.  But in your case, if the building hasn’t been properly maintained (which it sounds like it might not have been) then you might want to invest in a builder going through the place and identifying issues that might need to be dealt with in the next 10 year timeframe.  You can then put a price on each of these and increase levies to start saving.  You could ask the strata manager to put a motion on the AGM agenda that the OC develops a capital works plan.

Another option is for individual owners to take over the job of replacing their own roofs, but I don’t recommend this because once an owner does this, he/she is responsible for ongoing maintenance of that roof.

Owners can submit a motion for the agenda of a general meeting, so you should do so (and find out when the Annual General Meeting is due). You request to add that motion must be made before the Agenda is prepared and sent out (which is commonly 3 weeks before the AGM date).
The agenda motion you should word to require yes/no responses:- as a guide, something along the lines,
“That the owners corporation resolves to:
(a) have the strata manager engage the builder [NAME] carry out an inspection of the roof of all villas, and provide a report of their current condition, within 1 month of this meeting, and provide the report to all owners,
(b) if the report determines that any roof needs repairs, then have the strata manager arrange at least 2 quotes from qualified roof repairers, specifying the work required for any repairs, and the a quote of costs, according to each villa, and in total, within 3 months of the report being received,
(c) call a general meeting within 1 month of the 2nd of these quotes being received, with agenda motions to (i) authorise repairs, (ii) select and authorise a repairer to carry them out, and (iii) determine if our current levy receipts will fund these repairs, or authorise a special levy to be used to fund the repairs, and if so, to (iv) authorise the owners corporation to raise that special levy for an appropriate amount.”

It sounds like the strata manager is procrastinating, for whatever reason. You should therefore propose a motion with time limits specified, so he has to proceed relatively quickly. You need yes/no votes on all parts, so you need to get the other owners on side ahead of time. Note that raising a special levy is an ordinary resolution, so requires a 51% vote in favour to pass (and the vote is counted by unit entitlement, not by lots, although a lot vote might have the same result), of owners present. At the meeting, the owners can amend motions, so you can adjust the fine points, but the amendments can’t be too substantial, so make sure all the important issues are covered…

And if the motion is voted down by the other owners, then you may need to go to the Tribunal for an order. So get your fellow owners on side, and do some politicking, ahead of time, to get this done quickly and easily.

Flame Tree (Qld) wrote:

That doesn’t seem right that the Strata Manager could or would make submit a motion out of a general update issue

To be fair, we haven’t seen the motion and it could be the OC being instructed to examine the issue and report back.

As to if your block has enough funds, or not. That doesn’t fly.

Not sure what you mean by “doesn’t fly”. Obviously lack of funds is an impediment. But you’re right, at some point someone is going to have to come up with an assessment of how much work is required and how much it would cost.

If it was my scheme, I would be asking how long the tiles are going to last, which roof is in the worst shape and work out a progressive replace and repair program based on the answers to those questions.

I would also float the idea of exploring the use of a cheaper but visually acceptable and equally resilient alternative, which would probably require a change in the by-laws..