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Topic
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We have a tenant in our units who has damaged the common property and also drug dealing which the local police know about.
Have been in touch with fair trading.Have been told they can be issued with a notice to comply with the bylaws.
This has been a complete waste of time.
The parties and language are dreadful.
Also the owner of the unit is a year behind in maintenance levies.
The strata manager said there is nothing else we can do.
Can you advise anything else we can do.
– RM
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Replies
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See here from Jimmy T: http://www.flatchat.com.au/by-laws-and-breaches-the-options/
The Owner or Tenant can be fined if the Notice to Comply is ignored.
See here for some info regarding the unpaid levies:
https://www.lookupstrata.com.au/nsw-unpaid-levies-new-rules/
Mailbox – For unpaid maintenance levies the relevant sections of the Act are:
NSW SSMA 2015 sections dealing with the Unpaid Levies and Payment Plans
- Section 84: Liability of persons other than owners for contributions
- Section 85: Interest, discounts on contributions and payment plans
- Section 86: Recovery of unpaid contributions and interest
And more info regarding your two issues (By-laws, and unpaid levies) are here at Page 20 and 24:
https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/pdfs/About_us/Publications/ft045.pdf
My first thought was that you really need a new strata manager as their “too-hard” basket seems to be getting way too much traffic.
The following is advice that competent strata manager would give:
By- law breaches:
These are things like noise and abusive behaviour – depending on your specific by-laws.
Document any breaches of the by-laws and agree at a properly constituted strata committee meeting to issue notices to comply on the prescribed form – one for each of the breaches – listing the by-laws that have been breached and how and when this occurred.
If the breaches continue, go straight to NCAT (no mediation required) and ask for penalties (fines) to be issued.
Strata law breaches:
These are things like damage to common property and using the premises for an a non-permitted business.
First apply for mediation with Fair Trading, then apply for orders from NCAT.
You should also consider taking action against the owners for failure to control the behaviour of their tenant.
Unpaid levies
You are allowed by law to pursue unpaid levies as a debt at the debtor’s expense. There are several levy debt collection experts who will do this all for you at no expense to the owners’ corp. You can pursue debt recovery through local courts and even garnishee the rent collected until the debts are cleared.
A concerted effort on all fronts may, quite possibly, drive both drug-dealing tenant and deadbeat landlord out of the building.
Then all you have to do is deal with your do-nothing strata manager.
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