Can EC approve renovations?

@stax said:

What stumps me though is that Sect 65A refers only to “improving or enhancing the common property“. Yet most renovations, power upgrades, installations of external aircons or even adding an external bathroom exhaust outlet are all about improving or enhancing individual lots. The changes to common property in these cases seem to be better described by Model Bylaw 5(1), requiring written consent to damage common property.

Have I got the wrong end of the stick?

Strictly speaking, your strata manager is correct, especially if your version of the by-law is the same as the standard one (below).  The question of  what is and isn’t lot property is less clear in pre-1974 buildings where the line between lot and common property was in the middle of the wall, so windows, for instance, were considered lot property. 

Looking at your list of “minor” works, installing an external aircon and adding an external bathroom exhaust outlet both affect common property as they go through common property walls and may affect the appearance of the building.  The installation of additional power points may intrude into common property walls and they, and especially the installation of air conditioning, may affect the load capacity of your electrical board.

Even with the older common property provisions, there is very little that happens in strata that occurs in isolation.  Best wait till next July when, under the new laws,  all sorts of things will be deemed to be minor works and can be OK’d by the EC .

Here’s the current standard by-law (yours may differ …)

5   Damage to common property

(1)  An owner or occupier of a lot must not mark, paint, drive nails or screws or the like into, or otherwise damage or deface, any structure that forms part of the common property without the approval in writing of the owners corporation.

(2)  An approval given by the owners corporation under subclause (1) cannot authorise any additions to the common property.

…

(5)  Despite section 62, the owner of a lot must maintain and keep in a state of good and serviceable repair any installation or structure referred to in subclause (3) that forms part of the common property and that services the lot.

@stax said:
I’m still a little confused about the relevance of Sect 65A to upgrades of individual lots. Such work may affect and even alter common property but I would have thought that was significantly different from “improving or enhancing” it – or does the legal definition of that phrase include any change whatsoever?

In this context the major significance of 65A is to correctly apportion the responsibility for upkeep of the altered common property to the person who is benefitting from the alterations and that can only be done by a special resolution.

The Act is worded so that responsibility defaults to the Owners Corp. However, the intention is the opposite – it’s a wake-up call to owners that if they don’t apportion responsibility properly, they will end up carrying the financial can in the future, say, when the unit has been sold to someone else.

The explanation of how this works is laid out in great detail  HERE by our Strataguru Whale.

This website is littered with complaints and questions about changes made to common property on a nod and a wink that come back to haunt owners corps financially when the person who made the changes without approval sells to another owner who wants the additional installations fixed.

A prime example would be adding an awning to the front of your apartment.  Someone has to be responsible for the heavy duty fixings that would need to be drilled into the common property external wall and it shouldn’t be the other owners. 

65A   Owners corporation may make or authorise changes to common property

(1)  For the purpose of improving or enhancing the common property … an owner of a lot may take any of the following action, but only if a special resolution has first been passed at a general meeting of the owners corporation that specifically authorises the taking of the particular action proposed:

(a)  add to the common property,

(b)  alter the common property,

(c)  erect a new structure on the common property.

(2)  A special resolution that authorises action to be taken under subsection (1) in relation to the common property by an owner of a lot may specify whether the ongoing maintenance of the common property once the action has been taken is the responsibility of the owners corporation or the owner.

(3)  If a special resolution under this section does not specify who has the ongoing maintenance of the common property concerned, the owners corporation has the responsibility for the ongoing maintenance.

Hi

I am an owner in a unit block constructed in the early 1960’s.  I have a inquiry about the comment “..The question of  what is and isn’t lot property is less clear in pre-1974 buildings where the line between lot and common property was in the middle of the wall, so windows, for instance, were considered lot property.” 

Would this mean if I wished to renovate my kitchen in the coming months, that I would not need OC approval to do so, even with the new strata laws?  It would mean the removal and replacement of tiles but the remainder would be just replacement of old for new.

Many thanks…

OK… thanks.