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Topic
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Recently our strata managing agent issued a work order to a contractor requiring a quote for repairs to a window and fly screens. Instead we received an invoice for completed work, and the cost seems high for the work thought to have been done.
When asked what process was followed, the strata managing agent responded that the contractor was a “trusted trade” who decided it was more expedient to go ahead and do the work.
There is no delegation to the strata managing agent to engage contractors without approval under our agreement. The lot owner involved has a history of “repurposing” contractors engaged to work on common property around her villa.
Is this “trusted trades” practice commonplace? Would be easy to abuse? To me, a “trusted trade” is a contractor of first choice but who is engaged following a proper process.
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Assuming this dispute will end in a legal venue, you need to line up all your ducks in a row.
I suggest you get the ball rolling and write a polite note to the agent referencing the completed job performed, when only a quote (presumably free of charge or for a nominal fee) was to be obtained, and ask the agent “on whose authority was the contractor/tradesman engaged to perform the completed work”? You could, as I do, throw in “please reply within 48 hours or without further correspondence I will refer this matter to NSW Fair Trading”.
Only when I include the above last line do agents ever reply in a timely manner, knowing that I am not pussy footing around.
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