Six questions to ask before you approve a major repair

The moment the quote lands

A committee meeting, one agenda item, one quote attached, and a manager who would like a decision tonight. Large repair decisions often arrive in that shape, and by the time the vote is taken most of the money has already been committed by the way the question was framed.

Six questions cover most of what goes wrong. None of them need building knowledge to ask, and a manager who knows the job will have the answers ready.

What are we fixing, and who diagnosed it?

A quote is an answer. Before reading the number, find out what question it answered and who asked it.

A crack over a doorway, water in the lift pit and a brown ring on a top-floor ceiling are symptoms. The cause sits behind them somewhere: clay drying out under one corner of the footing, a failed waterstop, a box gutter that overtops in heavy rain and pushes water back under the flashing. When the trade that will do the work also makes the diagnosis, the corporation has asked a question whose most expensive answer is also the most profitable one to give.

For anything past a few thousand dollars, buy the diagnosis separately. A consulting engineer for structural movement, a CCTV drain survey for pipe failures, a building consultant for water ingress. An inspection report costs a fraction of the works, and it changes what you are buying.

What else could we do, and what does each option cost over ten years?

Tree roots in an old earthenware sewer line can be cut out and the line treated with a root killer, which buys a few years for a few hundred dollars, or the line can be relined or dug up and replaced, which settles it for decades. Check what your water authority permits before anyone buys the product.

A footing that has started to move may need underpinning, or it may need the soil moisture around it evened out so the reactive clay stops shrinking and swelling. AS 2870 classifies sites by how far that clay moves, and on a class H or class E site the water in the ground is doing more work than the concrete is.

A roof that leaks in storms may need replacing, or it may need the gutters cleared on a schedule and rainheads fitted to the box gutters so that overflow goes over the edge of the building instead of into the ceiling. Box gutter and overflow design sits under AS/NZS 3500.3.

Ask for each option with a price and an expected service life next to it. A treatment that costs a few thousand dollars and lasts three years and a replacement that costs ten times as much and lasts forty are not close, and that arithmetic only appears when both are on the page.

How many quotes, and are they for the same job?

New South Wales sets a number. Section 102(1) of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 requires an owners corporation to obtain at least two independent quotations for proposed expenditure on an item above the prescribed amount, currently $30,000, and since 11 December 2023 that applies to every scheme rather than only large ones. The Act defines independent quotations as quotations from persons who are not connected with each other, and exempts emergency expenditure.

South Australia does not set a number. Neither the Strata Titles Act 1988 nor the Community Titles Act 1996 says how many quotes a corporation must obtain, so the discipline comes from the manager's duties instead. Section 27C of the Strata Titles Act and section 78C of the Community Titles Act both put a body corporate manager in a fiduciary relationship with the corporation and require honesty, good faith and due care and diligence. A single quote for a large job is hard to square with that.

Comparability matters as much as the count. Three quotes written against three different understandings of the work are three different jobs, and the cheapest is usually the one that left the most out. The fix is a written scope: what is included, what is excluded, what standard the work is to meet, who supplies access and scaffolding, and what happens to defects. Our guide to working with contractors covers the scope and work order side of this.

Who does the contractor work for?

Ask whether the manager, or any related company, receives a commission, rebate, referral fee or margin on this work, and get the answer in writing.

South Australia has law on this point. Section 27D(1) of the Strata Titles Act 1988 makes it an offence for a delegate with a direct or indirect pecuniary interest to perform delegated functions without first disclosing that interest to the corporation in writing, and carries a Division 4 fine. Section 78D(1) of the Community Titles Act 1996 does the same, with a maximum penalty of $15,000. Both Acts then give the same worked example: a delegate who would receive a commission for placing the corporation's business with a person commits an offence by failing to disclose it before placing that business.

Panels are worth asking about separately. A maintenance panel is common and is not improper by itself, but a contractor who pays to sit on one has paid for something, and the corporation should know what.

What does our manager know about buildings?

Body corporate management is an administrative trade. Collecting levies, calling meetings, keeping the records and the trust account, renewing the insurance. Running a six-figure remedial project is a different skill, and nothing in the legislation assumes a manager holds it. Our guide to what a strata manager actually does sets out where the role stops.

So ask. Have you supervised work like this before, and what went wrong. Who wrote the scope, you or the contractor. Who inspects the work before final payment is released, and what happens if it fails in two years. Where the answers are thin, the corporation can engage a superintendent or contract administrator for that job alone.

Should the corporation be paying for this at all?

Ask this before the excavator arrives, because once the work is done the evidence is gone and an insurer has lost its chance to inspect.

Storm damage, a burst pipe and the damage that follows one are usually insured events, and the corporation's policy may cover the repair or a share of it. Recent building work may still sit inside a defects liability period or a statutory warranty, both of which run for years after completion and differ by state. The failure may sit on the lot side of the boundary rather than the common property side, which makes it a different owner's bill. Each of those changes who signs the cheque, and none of them can be assessed after the fact from a paid invoice. Our guides to strata insurance and making a claim set out the process.

Photograph everything before the work starts, whatever you conclude.

Before the vote

The root treatment costs a few hundred dollars and takes an afternoon. It is worth knowing whether it would have worked before the excavator turns up.

If your committee is holding a quote and these questions do not have answers, we are happy to look at it with you. Call 1300 79 2255 or email hello@acaciacollective.com.au.