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Is this a Renovation By-Law Fee Proposal Request

Is this a Renovation By-Law Fee Proposal Request?

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The Lot Requiring the By-Law is my Residential Lot.

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Please attach detailed scope of works regarding the works involved in the by-laws, including the quote from your contractor and any drawings provided by your architect or contractor. Please include any non-file details below in the "Enquiry" field.

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It’s time to update your brief for any expert reports in NCAT | New Code of Conduct from 11 September, 2024

Posted 18 September 2024

Category: Strata, Building Defects

On 11 September 2024, NCAT published an updated Expert Code of Conduct (Procedural Direction 3).

These changes come after the previous Expert Code of Conduct had been in effect for more than 6 years, since 28 February 2018.

Key Changes

An expert witness must abide in a timely way by any direction given by the Tribunal.

An expert’s report must, either in the body of the report or in an annexure, include the following:

reference to any private or business relationship between the expert and the party for whom the report is prepared, and an actual or perceived conflict of interest that may impact on his or her role of which the expert is aware;
the letter of instruction or details of the questions or issues the expert has been asked to address in the report, as well as documents or other materials the expert has been asked to consider;
the extent to which any opinion which the expert has expressed involves the acceptance of another person’s opinion, the identification of that other person and the opinion expressed by that other person;
a declaration that the expert has made all the inquiries which the expert believes are desirable and appropriate (save for any matters identified explicitly in the report), and that no matters of significance which the expert regards as relevant have, to the knowledge of the expert, been withheld from the Tribunal.

Where the expert report relates to the completion or rectification of residential building work under the Home Building Act 1989 (NSW) or the duty of the owners corporation to maintain and repair property under the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW), as appropriate the report of an expert witness must also include the following matters:

if rectification, demolition, repair or other alteration of property is recommended, the reasons for such recommendation, the scope of the recommended works, and the likely costs involved (including, where relevant, how those costs have been calculated);
whether any alternative remedy or remedies are a reasonable alternative.

In Tribunal matters where a Work Order is sought rather than a Money Order, it may not always be appropriate for the author of an expert report to include the estimated rectification costs – an owner should therefore consult with their expert in advance as to whether they have the necessary expertise to provide such an opinion and if they have adequate insurance coverage to cover such an opinion.

If you are in a dispute relying on expert evidence and need legal assistance, feel free to reach out as we have specialists in numerous divisions of NCAT e.g. home building and strata.