Question: Can the owners corporation park a common property maintenance issue forever, quoting lack of funds?
If common property repairs cost $10k to fix and strata have $20k in the capital works account, can the owners corporation park the common property maintenance issue in the pending list, citing a lack of funds?
Answer: Definitely not.
Definitely not. Section 106 of the Strata Schemes Management ACT states that the Owners Corporation must repair and maintain the common property to ensure that it’s in working order. So if it’s failed, it’s not working, it doesn’t operate and Owners Corporation has an obligation to repair it. Having no funds is not an excuse to make that obligation. It just means that the Owners Corporation needs to take steps to raise those funds. That’s why legislation permits you to raise what they call a special levy that’s above and in addition to your ordinary coordinately quarterly levies, so they will just have to raise a special levy to meet the obligations to repair and maintain the failed common property.
So if they don’t have enough funds, the short answer is they must raise those funds.
Leanne Habib
Premium Strata
E: info@premiumstrata.com.au
P: 02 9281 6440
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