The owners corporation sought orders requiring Mr Perkins, the owner of unit 35, to refurbish his bathroom to prevent water egress into unit 34 (the unit below unit 35).
ACAT Senior Member Robinson distinguished the facts of this case from The Owners – Units Plan No 1917 v Koundouris [2016] ACTSC 96 on the basis that the waterproofing in the Koundouris case was a “treatment to the slab and … practically integrated with it”. As the waterproofing was, effectively, part of the slab, in Koundouris it was clearly the owners corporation’s obligation to maintain it.
In this case, the evidence before ACAT was that the ‘water resisting’ elements of the bathroom, being the tiling, grout and adhesive, formed a part of the waterproof shell. As these were lot property, it was the responsibility of the owner of unit 35 to maintain the tiling, grout and adhesive (and nothing in Koundouris ameliorated that obligation).