The inner west is full of them: the long, thin, two or three storey red-brick walk-up with no lift. They swept through these suburbs in the 1970s, made saleable flat by flat by the strata title legislation of the 1960s, and they have been an affordable way into the property market ever since.
They also share one feature that changes every plumbing conversation in them, and almost no plumber talks about it. A strata scheme of six lots has almost no money. The technical question is usually the easy part. What decides whether anything actually happens is arithmetic and agreement.
A repair to shared pipework in a tower is spread across a hundred lots and comes out of an established fund. In a six-lot scheme the same repair is a special levy of a thousand dollars per owner, arriving in the post. That is a financial decision before it is a technical one, and a recommendation that is technically correct and financially impossible simply does not get actioned.
- Ask for what is failing now and what will fail next, not just a quote
- Ask what each option costs and what deferring a year costs
- Ask which parts can be staged across two budgets
- Expect the answer to be a document a meeting can vote on
- A plan the scheme can fund beats a perfect plan it cannot
On this page
1. The bill divides by six, not by sixty
This is the whole thing in one line and it is worth sitting with, because it explains behaviour that otherwise looks like neglect.
A six thousand dollar repair to a shared stack in a large building is spread across a hundred-odd lots and paid from a fund that has been accumulating for years. Nobody gets a letter. The committee approves it and it happens.
The same six thousand dollars in a six-pack is a thousand dollars per owner, as a special levy, arriving unexpectedly. For an owner-occupier in entry-level stock that is a genuinely significant amount of money, and for an investor it is an unbudgeted call in a quarter they had already planned.
So the same repair is a routine maintenance item in one building and a serious decision in another, with nothing different about the pipe.
The constraint is real and it is structural. A committee weighing a levy carefully is doing its job properly, not being difficult.
2. Why the money is usually not there
These blocks are entry-level stock and always have been. Levies in small schemes have generally been set as low as the owners could get away with, because keeping holding costs down was the point.
That is entirely understandable and it has a consequence: when something needs repairing properly, the money to do it is very often not sitting there. Which is why small blocks patch and re-patch rather than repair, and why a stack can be cleared five times before anybody looks at why.
Each patch is affordable. That is exactly what makes it the default, and it is why the cumulative cost is invisible: nobody adds up five clearances over four years and compares them against the repair that would have ended it.
3. Six owners, and they want different things
In a block this size there is commonly nobody managing it professionally. The committee is the owners, and there are six of them with genuinely different positions.
- One lives there and wants the problem gone.
- One is an investor and is weighing it against the return.
- One is about to sell and does not want a levy on the books.
- One cannot fund a levy this quarter, whatever they think of the proposal.
- One has been through this before and is sceptical of the quote.
- One is uncontactable for six weeks.
None of those positions is unreasonable. Together they mean a proposal has to survive more than being technically right. It has to be something six people with different constraints can all say yes to, which is a different bar entirely.
4. What to ask a plumber for, instead of a quote
A quote answers one question: what does this cost. A committee needs five answers, and any plumber who works these blocks should be able to give them.
- What is failing now. With evidence, ideally footage, rather than an assertion.
- What will fail next, and roughly when. So the scheme is not surprised twice.
- What each option costs. Including the cheaper ones, honestly compared.
- What deferring it a year costs. Doing nothing is a legitimate option for a scheme with no money, but only if somebody has priced it.
- What can be staged across two budgets. This is frequently the answer that actually gets voted through.
That is a document a meeting can work from. A single figure at the bottom of a page is not, and handing one to a six-lot committee is a good way to have nothing happen for two years.
Committee meeting coming up?
We will put together something you can actually vote on, not just a number.
5. Staging is usually the unlock
The proposal that passes in a small scheme is frequently not the best one. It is the one that fits in the budget that exists.
A great deal of plumbing work can be sensibly staged: deal with the section that is actually failing this year, plan the rest for next, and know the order. That is not a compromise on quality if it is done deliberately, with the sequence chosen on engineering grounds rather than on whatever is cheapest first.
What it does require is somebody saying out loud which parts can wait and which genuinely cannot, and being honest when the answer is that a particular thing should not be deferred. A staged plan with a clear "this one is not optional" line in it is far more useful than either extreme.
6. Say what deferring costs, and mean it
This is the part we think matters most, and it cuts both ways.
Do nothing is a legitimate option for a committee that has no money, and a plumber who refuses to acknowledge that is not being helpful. But it is only a legitimate option if somebody has told the owners what it will cost later: more clearances, more damage, a bigger job, or the same job with reinstatement on top.
A scheme that defers with that number in front of it has made a decision. One that defers because nobody mentioned it has had a decision made for it by silence, and that is the thing worth avoiding.
Anything about how a scheme raises or holds money is not our field, and a committee with real financial questions should be asking somebody qualified in that rather than a plumber.
- A six-lot scheme has almost no money, and that decides what can actually happen.
- The same repair is routine in a tower and a thousand-dollar letter in a six-pack.
- Small schemes rarely hold a real fund, so they patch and re-patch instead of repairing.
- Six owners have different constraints, so a proposal has to be fundable as well as correct.
- Ask for what is failing, what is next, what each option costs, and what deferring costs.
- Staging across two budgets is frequently the thing that actually gets voted through.
When the bill divides by six FAQs
Why do small blocks keep clearing the same drain?
Because each clearance is affordable and the repair is not. It is a rational response to having no fund, and it only looks like neglect from outside. What changes it is somebody costing the alternative properly.
What should we take to a general meeting?
What is failing now with evidence, what will fail next, what each option costs, what deferring a year costs, and what can be staged. Those five things are what a committee can vote on. A single quote is not.
Is a camera inspection worth it in a small block?
Usually, yes, and more so than in a large one. In a scheme with no money the worst outcome is spending a levy on the wrong thing, and footage is what stops that. It also gives sceptical owners something other than an opinion.
Can plumbing work really be staged?
Often, provided the sequence is chosen on engineering grounds rather than on price. Deal with what is genuinely failing, plan the rest, and be explicit about anything that should not be deferred.
We cannot afford anything this year. What then?
Then that is the decision, and it is a legitimate one. What matters is making it with the cost of deferring in front of you rather than by default. Ask for that number specifically.
Do we need a strata manager for this?
Plenty of blocks this size do not have one and manage perfectly well. Anything about how the scheme raises or holds money is outside our field, and worth asking somebody qualified in that rather than a plumber.