If a fine is issued and payable and is not paid, then you would commence debt recovery proceedings.  The owner would be liable for the reasonable costs associated with recovering the debt.

Otherwise it would sit as a debt on the books in respect of that lot, and if the owner sold then that amount would be adjusted at settlement and paid to the OC.

Under the new laws you no longer have to go back to NCAT and seek an order to pay a fine that had already been imposed by NCAT.  

Now, if a penalty has been imposed and the resident hasn’t paid, you can go directly to a district court and ask for an order to pay.  See section 147 (below).  

By the way it refers to much higher penalties for breaches of Section 137 which refers to over-crowding.

The process now is: 

1. Issue Notice to comply.
If the resident ignores and breaches the by-law again…

2. Seek a penalty at NCAT for failure to comply.  
If the penaly is oredered but the resident fails to pay …

3. Seek debt recovery (as explained in item 3 above), including an order from a local court
Payment to go to Owners Corp

The system used to be

1. Issue Notice to comply.
If the resident ignores …

2. Seek a penalty at NCAT for failure to comply.  
If the resident fails to pay …

3. Seek an order from NCAT to pay the penalty.
If the resident still doesn’t pay …

4. Seek an order from a local court
Payment to go into state coffers

SSMA 2015

147 Civil penalty for breach of by-law

 (1) The Tribunal may, on application by an owners corporation, order a person to pay a monetary penalty of up to 10 penalty units if the Tribunal is satisfied that:

(a) the owners corporation gave a notice under this Division to the person requiring the person to comply with a by-law, and

(b) the person has since contravened the by-law.

(2) The Tribunal may, on application by an owners corporation, order a person to pay a monetary penalty of up to 20 penalty units if the Tribunal is satisfied that the person has contravened a by-law within 12 months after the Tribunal had imposed a monetary penalty on the person for a previous breach of the by-law.

(3) Despite subsections (1) and (2), the Tribunal may, in dealing with a contravention of a by-law made under section 137, impose a monetary penalty of up to 50 penalty units under subsection (1) and a monetary penalty of up to 100 penalty units under subsection (2).

(4) An application for an order under subsection (1) must be made not later than 12 months after the notice was given.

(5) An owners corporation is not required to give notice under this Division before applying for an order under subsection (2).

(6) A monetary penalty is payable to the owners corporation, unless the Tribunal otherwise orders.

Note : The penalty may be registered as a judgment debt and will be enforceable accordingly (see section 78 of the Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2013 ).