Water Leak On common Property

HI

Over the Christmas period  and after the heavy rain, I noticed that there was still a small pool of water on the driveway entrance to the LUGs. I thought this strange as the weather had been very hot and sunny after  the Christmas rain. On further inspection I found that the water was coming up through the ground. On investigation I found that the water meter to lot one was running extremely fast

I turned of the water meter and within five minutes the water leak had stopped. I informed the owner and advised that the water would be off until tomorrow as it is a public holiday and we could not get a plumber.  Water pipe ran to Tap on edge of common property. ( for reasons Unknown) there had been a leak previously  many years ago and the pipe had been fixed and the owner of the lot paid the water bill

The following morning I managed to get a plumber to come and inspect, I advised the plumber that the water pipe had been burst by what looks like a tree on the common property. He could not fix as he wanted to conduct a leak test to determine the position of the leak. I advised that the pipe ran along the side of the property and all that was required was to put an end on the pipe and stop the  water as the tap had been removed.

So he could not fix and I carried out the repair to the pipe and now all is good.

The new owner of the lot received a water bill for over $2000.00 and has requested that the body corp pay this bill as the pipe was on common property and that a tree on the common property most likely had caused the damage to the water pipe.

The body corp is taking the view that the owner of the lot is responsible for the bill as the pipe was connected to the water meter for the unit

Hope you can help sorry for the long explanation.

Thanks J

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