VIC: Q&A Owners Corporation Repairs and Maintenance

These Q&As are about owners corporation repairs and maintenance to areas of common property in VIC strata buildings.

Table of Contents:

• QUESTION: There are drainage issues in our building that may require major works. The owners corporation are requesting consent to go ahead but there is uncertainty around the scope of works and who will wear the costs. How do we proceed without knowing full costs?
• QUESTION: Our unit has been invaded by bird mites coming from the common property roof area. Should the owners corporation be responsible for the health and safety of residents?

Question: There are drainage issues in our building that may require major works. The owners corporation are requesting consent to go ahead but there is uncertainty around the scope of works and who will wear the costs. How do we proceed without knowing full costs?

We own a property in an owners corporation and have been made aware of some drainage issues that may require major works. The owners corporation are asking for consent to proceed with repairs by 9 am tomorrow but have only provided a rate schedule for the plumber and there is uncertainty around who will wear the costs. 

This has been an issue in the past that was investigated and we have asked for previous minutes however the strata management company have told us that they don’t have access to these as they acquired a previous owners corporation and no longer have the records.

My understanding is that records must be held for at least 7 years in Victoria?

Answer: The trick/trap here, is that it may not be possible to establish who’s drain has the issue, or even what exactly is the issue, until the plumber has attended.

The first thing to unpack, yes, the Owners Corporations Act 2006 requires that records are kept for at least 7 years.

How long must records be kept?

“Section 145 (3) An owners corporation must keep all other documents of a kind set out in section 144 for at least 7 years”

Whilst the act requires this, from a practical point of view if there has been a change in manager and those records simply can’t be located as they were never provided at handover, you may be stuck in no-mans land. If this is the case your next best bet is to ask if any of the other lot owner might have a copy in their file.

As far as the drainage issue, it is complicated. Unfortunately not one you can receive a single defining response in a message here. All I can do is discuss some practicalities, common themes and traps in general terms.

Drainage issues can be many and varied, both in terms of the cause, and also, who is responsible. The overarching principle is this: if a service is only for the benefit of a single lot alone, that service is the responsibility of the lot owner. The trick/trap here, is that it may not be possible to establish who’s drain has the issue, or even, what exactly is the issue, until the plumber has attended. Sometimes, even after the plumber attends you still mightn’t get a definitive answer, not necessarily the plumber’s fault, it’s just the reality is water issues can be complicated.

Here is the relevant part of the act:

Owners corporation must repair and maintain services

1. An owners corporation must repair and maintain a service in or relating to a lot that is for the benefit of more than one lot and the common property.
2. An owners corporation may, at the request and expense of a lot owner, repair and maintain a service in or relating to a lot if it is impracticable for the lot owner to repair or maintain that service.

In short, if the OC does undertake works in good faith, and ends up discovering it is your property or service that has inadvertently caused the issue, then the OC does indeed have a legitimate cause to recover those costs from you as you are the owner of that service.

If concerned about a bottomless pit of cost, it might be worth speaking to the Committee about capping the scope of the works, whether time limit or cost limit. At least that way the potential maximum cost is limited. The trap here is that setting a limit could affect the plumber’s ability to actually establish the cause if for example they simply have to stop work once they hit a certain dollar number. You just have to pray they can find the issue in the time that they are given.

100%, it is never fun paying extra money for anything. Additionally, the unknown factor, in this case, is simply annoying, but unfortunately, sometimes the only way to get a definitive answer is to get some work down first, incur a cost, and then if found to be a single lot issue recover those funds accordingly. The one angle I would always endeavour to apply in matters just like this if the plumber’s investigation found that instead of your lot, it was one of your neighbour’s private drains causing the issue, surely you would feel it fair the OC recovers that cost from your neighbour?

Deryck Walker
SMTI
[email protected]

This post appears in Strata News #544.

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Read next:

• VIC: Q&A Who is Responsible For Maintaining the Nature Strip?
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