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(NSW) Our OC recently had a insurance claim on behalf of an owner who supposedly accidently broke her cooktop and her own contents insurer advised her to claim on the OC’s insurance. Many of the OC owners were quite surprised that a cooktop was indeed covered by the building insurance.
I think it quite fair that where a lot owner’s ‘fixtures’, such as the cooktop in this instance, which obviously does not form part of common property & the owner insists on claiming on the OC’s building insurance rather than their own, then they should cover the excess. Can this be enforced ?
A very timely topic as it currently affects our strata scheme.
We have a rear fence that is required to be replaced due to damage sustained solely from the back neighbour’s tenants who constantly overshoot their parking spaces and allow rubbish to mount against the fence. This is the second fence that has been damaged beyond repair in 16 years.
At the AGM, the OC agreed that a new fence is required and the strata manager advised that we can claim it against our insurance so we would only be up for the cost of the excess – this was the only option given to us aside from covering 50% (the rear pty owner to pay the other 50%) of the total fence cost out of OC funds. After a colleague explained that the Dividing Fences Act 1991 regulates neighbours’ responsibilities towards dividing fences and there is provision where the dividing fence needs rebuilding or repairing because of negligent or deliberate damage caused by an adjoining owner (or by a person entering the land with their permission) that owner is liable for the entire cost of restoring it to a reasonable standard.
When I asked the strata manager why the OC was not advised as per the above, she dismissed it as a rather long & convoluted process to get the rear pty owner to pay for the entire cost of replacing the fence even though we have records going back over 16 years and photos of the current fence where it is clear that the damage was caused from the rear pty’s side – she then said that she would charge the OC $600 in order to represent us & this would effectively negate any benefit.
What is obvious from the above is that the strata manager does not care about what is in the OC’s best interests – it is easier for her to claim the fence on our insurance & the OC then carries the risk of the effect on claims history and the possibility of increasing our premiums and excess in the future from which the strata manager will benefit because of the commission structure so an obvious conflict that I can see no way of effectively managing in terms of acting in the OC’s best interests.