A lawyer turned developer has forced incoming apartment buyers to pay for the cost of a roof replacement, at a whopping $280,000.
A 1970’s refurbishment in the Melville Council, the developer ran out of money midway through the construction works and took out a strata loan before any of the buyers moved in, which now forces them to pay an additional $40,000 per annum for the next seven years.
Samantha Reece, CEO of AAA stated that this was quite clearly one of the worst cases of corruption that had occurred in WA.
“These apartment owners, mostly first home buyers, have already paid upward of $335,000 for their apartment and now are being slugged a further $280,000 for the roof, which you would assume would be part of the original purchase price,” Ms Reece said.
“The developer was clearly seeking to take advantage of these buyers and what is even worse, the strata manager was in cahoots with the developer.
“The 2024/25 budgets showed the income for the strata loan as miscellaneous income and the outgoing for the roof was in excess of $310,000 making us wonder where these additional funds were allocated.
“The developer is also trying to make the owners pay for fencing and the like, which should have been part of the construction budget.”
AAA worked with the owners to call an EGM, where the Strata Manager was challenged on the budget and an itemised reconciliation of the bank account was requested. The Strata Manager resigned the next day.
“With the lack of consumer protection currently in WA, the AAA is recommending that buyers don’t proceed with purchasing an apartment until 2026 when new legislation is introduced.
“WA does not have a process of licensing developers nor holding them to account – as has been witnessed as well at Shenton Quarter, and as such buying an apartment at the moment represents a huge risk.”
The Strata Company is now seeking legal action to reallocate the cost of the roof loan to the developer.
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