Travels etc.

This post is a follow up on the earlier article  Development Application for Strata Common Wall . Residential owners corporation reached out to surveyor and found out deposited plans that show the boundary is face of the wall on the commercial strata side. That means the applicant (commercial strata) submitted development application without consent from the owners of the wall. This was pointed out to the Council and the applicant as follows: " Section 78A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW) provides for the making of a development application (DA) subject to compliance with the requirements of the regulation.  Clause 49 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2000 (NSW) (regulation) mandates that a DA needs to be either made by the ‘owner’ of the land affected by the DA or any other person so long as the owner has provided consent in writing. DA Number was made by Applicant_Name and the owner specified is Proprietors of St...

Buying and managing a strata unit is a challenge sometimes, but the things can be worse if the property is located near an unscrupulous commercial tenants/proprietors. In some cases this is aggravated by local council. Here's an example of an issue that came up second time in two and half years. The council approves commercial operation (cafe) in a place that was not designed for this purpose. It is a mixed development that consists of a commercial shops and a residential strata: The building doesn't suit for a loud business, food serving business, bar or liquor serving business for a number of reasons: 1. Close proximity of the residential units 2. The design of the building that doesn't allow commercial food preparation and serving of patrons in the courtyards or when the shop doors are opened, because all odours and noise go inside the building and echo into all the units facing those commercial shops. 3. There is no waste management facility for commercial ...

Today, Friday 26/04/2013 the builder has actually started the work to fix major defects! However this didn't just come easy. On 03/04/2013 it heavily rained and the water started leaking into the ground floor unit and damaged the floorboards. The owners of the unit contacted the builder and Fair Trading office, because the water leakage has been on the list of defects, but has never been properly addressed by the builder. The builder and the person who installed the windows/doors came to inspect the issue. They decided to re-seal the windows/doors to improve the waterproofing. On 17/04/2013 the Fair Trading Inspector and the builder came to mediate the defects situation. The builder looked like a student in front of the teacher trying to explain why the defects listed really appeared. However the inspector was really good and pointed out that everything had to be built up to standards and that the builder though sent sub-contractors to do the work in good faith has neve...

On 09/02/2013 the builder came to inspect the exact same defects they have been aware of since September 2012. During the inspection the builder verbally agreed to fix majority of those defects, rejected some of them as they believed those were maintenance problems and not the building problem and rejected their liability on some of the defects. The owners corporation requested a report, which should include a list a of defects and exact dates when those defects would be rectified. The builder verbally agreed with that. After 10 days - 19/02/2013 - the builder sent an email to the owners corporation and Fair Trading that included the unit numbers and the defects that will be fixed/not fixed. Some defects were missing from the list and as usual there were no firm dates. Owners Corporation have responded to that email (including Fair Trading) that the report is not complete. After three days - 21/02/2013 - the builder sent an email providing the contact details of the person...

Major building defects are still not resolved and the owners of most of the units didn't even bother to follow up. However some units are eager to finalise the process and fix the defects. One member of executive committee has built an online application on the Internet to get the response from the interested units what defects have been fixed and what are outstanding. With the results of that report owners corporation lodged a complaint with Fair Trading against the builder on the outstanding defects. The complaint was lodged on 16/01/2013. A week later, on 23/01/2013 Fair Trading called the owners corporation to confirm the details of the complaint. Same day they called the builder. Builder contacted owners corporation on 29/01/2013 to advise that they are coming to inspect the defects again! They explained it as they want to confirm what defects they are responsible for and that they are going to contact Fair Trading after the inspection. The builder advised they ar...

In the earlier post I described the timeline of the intriguing case of construction issues/defects resolution. What's obvious: Nobody is rushing to fix the earlier reported issues Vendors don't do anything to fix the issues Strata management doesn't assist in fixing the issues, but forward messages to the executive committee of the owners corporation Treasurer of the owners corporation Executive Committee is somehow involved in the process and communicates directly to vendor, strata manager and the builder. No visible results though, but just promises of better future. Research The owner initiated the following research: Strata rules to see who is responsible for what in terms of building defects Seeking legal advice to set up a plan for further actions against the Vendor and/or the Builder Requesting strata scheme account statement Outcomes There is no law for breach of contract. So legally there is no obligation to act as per contract of sale even ...

Situation Vendor has sold the property and signed the contract. As per contract of sale the vendor at their own expense needs to rectify defects within 6 months after settlement. Vendor engages their builder to rectify the defects. The Builder doesn't provide any reasonable notice, doesn't want to rectify some of the defects, doesn't have any quality assurance in place. Both Vendor and Builder doesn't communicate any certain dates, Vendor says to do whatever the owner of the property wants, Builder doesn't respond in writing. Resolution Stage 1.   Beginning of December 2011 - just after settlement. Owner sent defects list to the Vendor as per contract of sale. Vendor forwarded the list to the builder. Builder sends people to the property. They didn't provide any notification in writing, fixed some of the defects quickly and din't rectify majority of them, left the mess after themselves. Stage 2.   Mid January 2012. Owner sent the list of outst...