Question: We are about to repair our driveway for cracks and leaks to the underground car park. We are looking at carrying out the repair in three stages. Can this be treated as three separate expenses or is this in breach of the regulations?
We are about to repair our driveway for the cracks and leaks to the underground car park. What we are looking at is to repair it in three stages. Find and fix the cracks that are causing the problems. Then do the same to the other smaller ones. After this is accomplished we will have the surface done with three coats of different sealants and membranes.
Quotes for the different stages will be received at three different times. It will be almost impossible to do a total quote as we have to complete each stage before we can go to the next stage.
Can we treat this as three different items of expense and not a single item of expense? If we take this to our body corporate for approval in three separate stages, will we be in breach of the regulation?
Answer: Improvements to common property are generally considered as a whole and not as a series of individual works.
You’re right. For the purposes of approval by the body corporate, improvements to common property are generally considered as a whole and not as a series of individual works. I note you also refer to stages, which suggests that things will occur over a period of time and not all at once, which further reinforces the idea that this is a series of individual works.
I note your final comment that quotes will be ‘almost impossible’ until after each preceding ‘stage’ is complete. The key here is your reference to ‘almost impossible’. So that suggests it is in fact possible. You’d need to have some good reasons to back up ‘impossibility’. For example, if you ask several contractors and every single one of them says they can’t quote until the previous work is done, and you have some emails to that effect, then perhaps it might be reasonable to argue that treating quotes separately would be ok. If ‘almost impossible’ means that it is a lot of hassle but the quote for all 3 works is obtainable, I don’t think it would be reasonable.
We have previously written about spending limits here: Body corporate spending limits
This post appears in Strata News #454.
Chris Irons Strata Solve E: chris@stratasolve.com.au P: 0419 805 898