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Under the Standard Bylaws (which can be amended) owners do not have a right to:
- refuse entry to their strata lot by any authorized person: in an emergency, even though no notice has been given
- refuse entry to inspect and repair parts of common property or the strata lot that the strata corporation is responsible to maintain or insure, if 48 hours written notice has been given
this unfortunately is a grey area. you might be able to call this an "emergency" but even then, it's not easy for a strata council to gain access and there is a lot of legal liability risk here.
the one thing that's certain is the repairs to your ceiling will come out of your pocket, either via insurance deductible/premium increase, or just paying for the repairs yourself.
we had a washing machine 2 floors above us overflow and suffered water damage to our ceiling (thankfully the water that leaked into our unit leaked directly into our bathtub, avoiding damage to our floors).
the only option to us was use our insurance to repair it, or repair it ourselves. then we could attempt to recoup costs by suing the owner at the CRT, but only if we could prove they were negligent and that it wasn't just bad luck.
we just repaired it ourselves and moved on with life.
your neighbour sounds like a total jerk.
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