@bigreader thanks for reply..had trouble uploading photos, but they are in comments now.

Would love to chat to neighbours but 1. We haven't moved in and won't move in until after renovations.

2. I don't know any of the neighbours or who has done the renovation works..I've only seen photo on real-estate listing. The renovations could have been done in units that are occupied by tenants or new owners.

Still knock on the neighbours doors. Explain your situation and ask if you can just check what was done in their kitchen. It doesn’t matter who owns the unit. You need to know your neighbours and get friendly with them. When you do the renovations they are the ones that will have to put up with the noise and inconvenience, so I would be getting them on your side. Start the conversation now.

Contact a plumber and ask if the kitchen taps and sick can be moved to the right hand side closer to the wall. Then the pipe could be a lot shorter. It may have to be that long for correct water flow? These are questions are plumber could answer before you have to go through the body corporate.

@dreamer I'm thinking the sink position will be fixed, but we will have a plumber come in and assess as soon as we can. At the moment we don't have keys yet, and are just trying to get a better idea of the potential complications, cost and duration of the kitchen remodel so we can budget for it and give appropriate notice for the apartment we rent.

Not going to pt it across town to wait at the gate of the building and see if any of the neighbours will let me to the common space or their units when I don't even have keys to property yet..but absolutely when the opportunity is there to talk to the neighbours I'll be taking it .

Hi! I would speak to the Strata Agent. If the neighbours have done anything (eg get strata to move the pipes or get a permission to do it themselves) then there will be a record of this in the strata documents, whether the official minutes authorising the change or expense or in the general correspondence. You can ask the Strata Agent to have a look and I think once you become an official owner you would also have a right to access the books/files/correspondence and do the search yourself in more detail

If you are uncomfortable about knocking on people's doors, you can always leave a note in their mailbox or put a notice in the foyer with your contact details - you'll be surprised how many people will be happy to help out

Thanks Elena, these are good ideas. We will settle in a couple weeks, and contacting the Strata Management Company asap about itended renovations. I'll ask them for records changes in the other units. A local plumber has recently told us that it will be a simple job to replace and recess the pipes, and that there are options to run the line under cabinetary and use a pump to ensure waste moves via the existing hole tat meets the stack..I'm sure we will have to get approval even for this. It's approximate price for the job I'm most interested in as trying to create a budget but I think we will just have to wait to get a plumber to give us a quote and then take that information to Strata Company..Thanks again..

Not a problem :) One thing to keep in mind is that if something happens to the neighbours pipes and they need to be accessed via your unit and your cabinets, you will be need to pay for fixing the damage to the cabinets yourself, even though the repair had nothing to do with you and was a strata job. I suspect this is why you have the pipes inside the cabinets right now - something went wrong on the previous occasion (burst pipe?) and instead of doing an expensive fix (opening the walls/floor/having to retile etc) which would have cost the previous owner a fortune, the plumber put a fix via the cabinets - it would have minimised the cost. Normally, if you are completely redoing the kitchen, this alternative fix is removed. Good luck!!

As you have said the pipe in the kitchen is original. I would say this is this original positioning of the pipe in the 1960 unit, which would have concrete floors. As the drainage goes into the stack in the wall. Also the pipe could be lead, or galvanised steel. So all the best for when you get the keys, and get a plumber in to solve your challenge and answer questions. An exciting time, hope all goes well.

I think the cabinet is there to hold all the pipes. They are attached to it. I would move them to the wall with a cutout in the cabinet so you can move the furniture around.