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Sydney strata of 42 apartments. Current Strata Committee seven. Annual General Meeting coming up, agenda not out yet.
We’ve got bullying here by the Strata Committee. Really nasty, overt, orchestrated bullying by a couple of Strata Committee ‘enforcers’ enabled by seat-warmer members plus our Strata Manager.
Plenty of evidence of the bullying acts; anonymous posters, emails, glued locks, broken car aerials and mirrors. No actual proof, but ‘on the balance of probability’ it’s obvious who’s doing this.
Complaints made to SC are dismissed in SC meeting minutes and there’s always an attempt to marginalise or ‘shame’ someone as well as a phrase attached such as ‘… on the Strata Manager’s advice’.
Three or four sensible owners such as I 🙂 are thinking of putting an item on the AGM agenda such as: ‘That bullying at SPXXXX be discussed and Owners Corporation resolve to eradicate Strata Committee behaviour that marginalises or shames residents’.
Is this what we should do?
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While it may be “obvious” who is doing this, in my view you have two strategies to deal with this. Both should be attempted at the same time.
When I refer to obvious in inverted commas, I mean without proof or hard evidence it useless and you run the risk of coming across as a unfounded complainer.
1. Surely there must be others in your complex who feel/see as you do. Sound them out. Try to get enough to make your views count.
2. Try to gather hard evidence of misdeeds eg glued locks, broken things. Not easy but others may be inclined to help especially if they have had something of theirs broken.
This will take longer and involve effort but it is the only way.
‘Bullying’ is becoming overused as a word and it has lost a lot of its potency as a result. It’s getting up there alongside ‘political correctness’ in terms of concepts that have their roots in good intentions but are too easy to be dismissed by the very people they are directed at.
If I were in your shoes, I would put a motion to the meeting that the Strata Committee investigate allegations of vandalism and intimidation of owners with dissenting views to establishing a protocol of acceptable behaviour by strata committee members.
I would put a second motion to the committee that the building invest in security cameras to monitor common property areas to protect owners from vandalism and intimidation.
Strictly speaking, the secretary should not interfere with these motions being presented but the chairman could rule them out of order at the meeting (if they are prepared to deal with the backlash). Even so, it would have served its purpose o0f getting these issues aired, especially if you were to add background information that should also go out with the agenda.
The background would itemise incidents in as unemotive a form as possible such as:
Jan 1, lot owner objects to plan proposed by SC. Jan 2, dissenting lot owner’s car vandalised.
Feb 1, lot owner asks for information re (whatever). SC member becomes threatening and abusive
Mar 1, poster appears on noticeboard saying (whatever) …
So what I am saying is that you don’t directly accuse the strata committee or its members of anything but you make them responsible for dealing with it.
Two things you need to bear in mind here are that you have a lot of leeway to point the finger without any comeback in terms of defamation, provided it is part of the discussions around the running of your building, it is kept within the confines of the building and there is no evidence that your comments were maliciously motivated.
Secondly, the new rules on proxy voting and nominations for the committee mean you could create havoc at the AGM just by turning up and demanding that they follow the rules. For instance, joint owners can’t nominate themselves and people who are not financial can’t nominate anyone. Also, nominations have to be in writing and signed by the proposer.
So you check every nomination in detail – a few will pop out, for sure.
Also, in your building each owner will be limited to two proxy votes so it would be very easy for a group of five people to take over the strata committee (unless the committee is very well organised).
As an alternative to the provocative motions, if I were you, I would quietly get your power block and its proxies sorted out, then just blitz the meeting, take over, deal with the inevitable backlash and move on.
So do your homework and be prepared to stand up and quote chapter and verse of the strata Act and Regulations. If you are ignored or silenced, at the very least you will have grounds for having the strata committee and strata manager sacked some time in the future.
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I take it that NSW does not have a legislated Code of Conduct for Committees. One thing that might put committee members on notice and which they could hardly object to would be a motion for your Owners Corp. to adopt the following code of conduct (from the ACT legislation):
Executive committees—code of conduct
1 Understanding of Act and code
An executive member must have—
(a) a commitment to acquiring an understanding of the Act, as relevant to the member’s role on the executive committee; and
(b) a good understanding of this code.
2 Honesty and fairness
An executive member must act honestly and fairly in exercising the member’s functions as an executive member.
3 Care and diligence
An executive member must exercise reasonable care and diligence in exercising the member’s functions as an executive member.
4 Acting in owners corporation’s best interests
An executive member must act in the best interests of the owners corporation in exercising the member’s functions as an executive member, unless it is unlawful to do so.
5 Complying with Act and code
An executive member must take reasonable steps to ensure that the member complies with the Act, including this code, when exercising the member’s functions as an executive member.
6 Nuisance
An executive member must not—
(a) cause a nuisance on the land; and
(b) otherwise behave in a way that unreasonably affects a person’s lawful use or enjoyment of a unit or the common property.
7 Unconscionable conduct
An executive member must not engage in unconscionable conduct in exercising the member’s functions as an executive member.
Examples
1 improperly using the executive member’s position on the executive committee to gain, directly or indirectly, an advantage personally or for someone else
2 exerting undue influence on, or using unfair tactics against, the owner of a unit in the units plan
Note An example is part of the Act, is not exhaustive and may extend, but does not limit, the meaning of the provision in which it appears (see Legislation Act, s 126 and s 132).
8 Conflict of interest
An executive member must disclose to the executive committee any conflict of interest the member may have in a matter before the committee.
Just on this subject of bullying in relation to meetings, agendas and minutes… Can I ask it is possible to have a nasty, inappropriate set of Strata Committee meeting minutes, which identify and shame, seek to marginalise persons unfairly… discussed at the AGM with a motion such as: ‘The Owners Corporation issues a vote of no confidence of discussion and decisions made at the Strata Committee meeting on February 31, 2016.”
Or can the whole meeting be ruled out of order? Or just something put ‘on the record’ to identify highly inappropriate proceedings and the documentation and decisions made (none of which were proper resolutions.)
It was a genuine lynch mob consisting of the Strata Committee protecting their ill gotten gains.
The OC can direct the committee within the bounds of the law and unnecessary identification and embarrassment of residents is best avoided, though harder to do in NSW where minutes are publicly displayed. And then there is the matter of proper and accurate recording of committee decisions, preferably with reasons for the decision also recorded. What if the minutes are so vague you can’t tell what they mean yet you need to rely on them for some legal matter? So, if the committee has reason to discuss and record a decision relating to a particular resident, how to avoid causing gratuitous embarrassment or offence?
A starting point would be for the OC to direct the committee to refer to ‘the owner of lot no. XX’ rather than naming the person in any minutes. A casual reader of the minutes might not know who that person is so some anonymity would result.
Interesting thank you Sir Humphrey but what if the unit owner was named and the minutes show ‘malice’? What motion might be moved? A vote of ‘no confidence’ or whatever?
I’ve got it! Don’t mean to reply to myself (or hijack this original thread) but I will ask our Owners Corporation to pass a “Censure Motion pertaining to the Strata Committee over decisions made and minutes published from the Strata Committee meeting held on xx/xx/2017”. I will have the minutes in question attached to the agenda as an annexure.
I will also put an approproprivated version of the ACT Act referred to above as a ‘code of conduct’, as has been suggested.
Please, some feedback would be most welcome.
I suggest you break it down. I would make it two or three motions.
The first to censure the committee for (e.g) their decisions.
The second to censure the committee for their minutes.
The third to propose a set of “standing orders” by which the committee must conduct its business in future. This does not require a by-law, just a majority vote. The committee has to do as instructed by the owners corporation, not the other way round.
If you put everything into one motion it makes it too easy for all your points to be dismissed through disinformation and obfuscation.
This you could lose the first two motions but still win the third.
Either way, you get to say your piece about the committee’s conduct
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