Question: Our committee was given an increased spending limit to improve the pool. Costs exceed the spending limit, and the pool still looks like a building site. Who is to blame?
The body corporate decided to improve our swimming pool. The committee’s spending limit was increased to $99,000 to complete the work.
The committee spent $205,000 without consultation with owners. Only half the work has been carried out. Owners won’t agree to the additional funds required to finish the pool. The pool area looks like a building site.
Does our body corporate manager share any responsibility for not managing the project’s budget?
Can the body corporate take action against the building manager overseeing the project?
I’m not a committee member. Can I put forward a grievance to the Commissioner’s Office regarding the committee’s behaviour? If not, what happens now?
Answer: The job needs to be finished, and then the assessment of what went wrong can begin.
We would need a lot more factual investigation before we could start pointing fingers, but it all starts with the contract for the works. What was included? What was excluded? Who was responsible for cost overruns?
I don’t think the Commissioner’s Office can really help yet. I think the job needs to be finished and then the assessment of what went wrong can begin. You certainly cannot leave the pool as just a hole in the ground, and the body corporate actually has a statutory responsibility to keep common property in good repair and condition – which is not maintaining what seems to be the status quo at the moment. Someone needs to take control, close it out, and then see if blame can be laid at anyone’s feet.
This post appears in the October 2023 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
Frank Higginson Hynes Legal E: frank.higginson@hyneslegal.com.au P: 07 3193 0500