www.shaproperty.com

When such leaks hit your condo ceiling...
Upper-floor home owners must now foot the bill

Strata Titles Board puts an end to old practice of sharing costs; new
landmark ruling expected to reduce such disputes in private estates
By Tan Hui Yee

IT STARTED with an unusual case brought before the Strata Titles Board
last year: A couple who had spent more than $40,000 fixing their
leaking toilet floors wanted their neighbour below to foot half their bill.

 
SHARING THE COST: An HDB owner has to share the burden of fixing the
leaking ceiling in his flat with his upper-floor neighbour, because
under the HDB Lease Agreement both owners have joint responsibility. --
JOYCE FANG

Until then, it was always owners of lower-floor apartments who hauled
their upper-floor neighbours to the board over leaky ceilings.

The board, which oversees disputes in private estates, threw out the
claim last week. It also issued a landmark ruling that will cut short
many such wrangles in the future.

It ruled that owners of upper-floor units will have to foot the entire
repair bill when water leaks through their floor because of wear and
tear.

In the past, the board had tended to split the bill between both owners
to motivate the one on the upper floor to repair the leaks, but it was
now stopping this practice to prevent people from taking advantage of
it, said the board's president, Mr Tan Lien Ker.

This differs from the Housing Board's approach, which usually makes
flat owners jointly responsible for fixing the leaks.

A lawyer from Drew and Napier, Mr Adrian Tan, said the Strata Titles
Board ruling will force a rethink in the way private property owners
handle such matters.

'Owners have a responsibility to maintain their units without getting
other people to share the cost of repairs,' he said.

Mr Derek Soh, of property consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle, reckons the
ruling will halve the normal one month it takes to resolve disputes
over
leaks as owners will have no leeway to haggle.

'It's going to be neater,' he said.

But the change was opposed by the president of the Association of
Management Corporations in Singapore, Mr Francis Zhan, who felt that
upper-floor owners should not be overly penalised for normal wear and
tear of their floors.

The costs have to be decided on a case-by-case basis, he said.

The board's decision comes after a new law was introduced in April that
makes owners of upper-floor units liable for leaks through their
neighbours' ceilings, unless proven otherwise.

However, even after the law came into force, it was still common for
repair costs to be split between owners of lower- and upper-floor
units, said estate managers.

This inevitably dragged out the disputes as owners haggled over how
much each should pay. Those living on the lower floors also sometimes
suspected their neighbours of bumping up their repair costs to their
bathrooms, the most common place for such leaks.

Inter-floor leaks - a common source of disputes between home owners -
are expected to increase as buildings age. They occur when buildings
are about 10 years old, when the waterproofing membranes between floors
wear out.

About 80 per cent of the 80 to 100 disputes the Strata Titles Board
hears every year are related to such leaks, estimated board president
Mr Tan.