Question: The strata manager has arranged work on a neglected lot and associated common property and divided the costs among owners. How do we ensure the owner of the neglected lot pays their proportion of the costs?
In our eight lot strata scheme, one rented lot is neglected and requires repairs. Our strata manager has organised an engineer and a building company for works. The repairs involve work to both lot and common property.
The lot owner’s proportion of the work outweighs the common property work. However, the strata manager has split the total cost among all the owners based on lot entitlement. The investor lot owner will pay less, and the remaining owners will cover their costs.
The executive committee and the engineer have alerted the strata manager to the lot responsibility on the strata plan, pointing out the owner’s responsibility. Still, our strata manager has yet to do anything to amend the cost allocation. What can we do?
Answer: If the common property is not the cause of the damage to the lot, the lot owner would be responsible for repairing or maintaining their lot property. The owners corporation should not be paying these costs.
If the common property is in disrepair and that disrepair has caused damage to the lot, the owners corporation would be responsible for repairing and maintaining the common property and the damage caused to the lot. The owners corporation has a strict duty to repair and maintain the common property under section 106 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015. It is liable for any reasonably foreseeable loss suffered by a lot owner due to the failure to repair and maintain the common property. Damage to a lot is a reasonably foreseeable loss.
If the common property is not the cause of the damage to the lot, the lot owner would be responsible for repairing or maintaining their own lot property. The owners corporation should not be paying these costs.
You should note that the strata managing agent is an agent of the owners corporation and does not necessarily make decisions of the owners corporation but carries out the decisions of the owners corporation and strata committee.
It is sometimes difficult to determine what is lot and common property. Some items, such as ceilings and waterproofing and tiles on bathroom floors and external walls are incorrectly assumed to be lot property as they are internal to a lot, when in fact, they are common property.
Matthew Jenkins Bannermans Lawyers E: enquiries@bannermans.com.au P: 02 9929 0226