Question: When we purchase, the strata manager led us to believe all known water ingress defects had been remedied. We now have wet carpets and black mould and are required to relocate for a year for remediation. What rights do we have against the negligent conduct of the strata manager?
Our Strata manager commissioned 4 engineering reports within 10 years due to known building defects. On all 4 occasions, opportunities have been lost in promptly addressing issues and litigating against the building defects within the warranty claim period.
When we purchase in the building in 2019, we were led to believe by the strata manager that all water ingress defects noted in dilapidation reports had been remedied, so we purchased with confidence.
For the last 14 months we have had visible wet carpets, walls and ceilings with little to no action to remedy. With visible black mould identified on walls we requested mould experts be sent to the apartment.
Mould analysis has been completed providing 80% of samples @ extreme contamination. A reading >5000 is considered extreme contamination, our master bedroom reading was 25,250 and our linen cupboard 126,025.
What rights do we have as owners against the negligent conduct of the strata manager and their team due to their lack of professionalism, building maintenance or even basic acknowledgement for our situation which is not our fault. We are required to relocate for approx. 1 year for remediation at our own expense.
Answer: Ordinarily there would be limited (or no) rights against the body corporate manager.
There is probably an important distinction to be made here in that the body corporate manager does not:
- have any decision making power; and
- take on the liability or responsibility of a body corporate.
If there is a building defect at the scheme there is a responsibility on the lot owner or the body corporate to take steps to address the defect (depending on what part of scheme land is defective).
To answer the question, ordinarily there would be limited (or no) rights against the body corporate manager. There may well be rights against the builder or body corporate, but that would depend on the evidence available to prove the cause of the defect and that it is not a defect the lot owner is responsible for.
Todd Garsden
Mahoneys
E: tgarsden@mahoneys.com.au
P: 07 3007 3753
This post appears in Strata News #556.
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