19/08/2026
How could the affected owner activate the other owners and the strata manager couldn’t? It takes commitment.
For Rivervale resident Ash Dempsey, the last two months have been intensely frustrating, trying to get urgent repairs for water leaking into her home, which is in a strata-titled building of seven units.
Ms Dempsey told Nadia Mitsopoulos on 102.5 ABC Perth that she first noticed water leaking from a communal balcony area above her ceiling in early June, and lodged a maintenance request with her strata management company.
“It's become increasingly worse over the last two months,” she said.
“Initially it was one patch just at one end of the ceiling, but now I have the cracking and blistering of the plaster from one end of the ceiling to the other.”
She said despite numerous calls to her strata management company, she still hasn’t received any repairs to her property, although a number of quotes have been received.
She says she is frustrated at the lack of action by the strata management company to organise repairs for a problem which has caused mould and damage to her possessions.
But Jordan Dinga, managing director of the Abode Strata, the firm that looked after Ms Dempsey’s building, said managers are powerless to act, even on urgent repairs, without approval from owners’ council to spend the funds.
In Ms Dempsey’s building, only one owner turned up to the last AGM and no council of owners was formed, meaning spending decisions required a vote of all seven owners in the complex.
“We can't act on anything, unless we get a majority instruction from all owners who now form that council of owners, which makes it really hard for us to send out a contractor urgently,” Mr Dinga said.
He said majority of the owners in the complex are investors who live elsewhere and haven’t always responded to emails seeking approval promptly, or at all.
“I wish there was a trigger within our legislation that said if something's urgent, I can send a contractor without the owner's approval. That would make my life so much easier,” he said.
Ms Dempsey ended up contacting all the owners herself to get approval for works to fix the water leak, and a contractor has now been approved.
In the meantime, Abode Strata has resigned from its contract with the Rivervale complex.
“Our contract requires that we actually get prompt response from the owners, and because we're not getting a prompt response from the council of owners, we can't actually act on things.”
