Owner above not repairing apartment balcony leak

Hi all,

I live in Victoria. I am the owner occupier of an apartment. Apartment upstairs is a rental. My balcony has had a slow leak from above for over a year. On and off for 3 years. It isn’t structurally dangerous, so I have been patient with repairs.

Originally leak was repaired by original builder as building was still under warranty. As expected he did a crap job. Leak returned 6 months later. Building now out of warranty. Owner upstairs is liable for repair (confirmed by Strata management and his own property manager).

Owner upstairs has been stalling getting repairs done for over a year now- reasons including; needed 3 plumber quotes but took ages to get them (in inner city Melbourne- really?), then tenant apparently won’t let plumber in because worried about Covid. I have been extremely patient due to Covid, but the latter excuse is being used now even when there are no active community cases of Covid in the state or country. Now it has been so long - the property manager has changed (same agency, different agent) and isn’t even replying to emails.

Quite frankly my patience and good will have expired (previous PM even told me upstairs owner is stingy financially and was stalling me). Upstairs owner is legally liable to fix. I am going to re-approach my body corporate and the property manager again so new manager can’t use excuses like he didn’t get the email.

Just wondering if anyone has advice on what I should do next to get my balcony fixed? Is approaching VCAT (or threatening to get things moving) an option?

I have waded through information online. There is loads of information for tenants but couldn’t find much for owner disputes.

Thanks!

 

Welcome to the forum

Pic's or it didn't happen
Ok, a pic makes is so much easier to understand, as we don't know if it is a crack, waterproofing failure or a spout drain that the wind blows back in on occasion

Sounds like a waterproofing issue or plumbing drain leak
In either case it is a body corporate issue (unless the people upstairs have tampered with the balcony)

It is easier for the strata manager to handball the issue to someone else, it should be raised with the body corporate.

Read your strata bylaws

Like this thread, read @cartart replies
Strata Unit - Balcony Tap Leak/Broken

 

Absolutely no idea whether the leak on the balcony is external or water is making it's way into your unit. You have banged on about covid, delays, being a rental, useless PM, handballing SM etc.

If it's coming into your unit, then it's travelling through common property and is the OC's problem to address and deal with the other owners.

If it is external and staying that way, it's a design fault.