Frank said:
thanks Jimmy – OK I take your point – you need a big stick to encourage lethargic selfish people who repeatedly ignore reasonable requests to repair common property … (tho' as for bad agents representing bad owners – I might argue that may also be the democratic/collective wish of owners corporations comprising many overseas absent landlords who only watch their cashflow)
Good point, but if I recall, employees of Owners Corps who know there is a danger and neglect to pass on the information could be in big trouble too. I would think the same overseas owners who realised they might be hit with a huge fine (presumably to be extracted from the sale of their property) might be anxious to make sure everyone is doing the right thing.
so if I understand your perspective, the sword of Damocles hanging over my head is only to serve as a reminder of responsibility for decisions affecting other people …
I have to say that if the purpose of the exercise was simply to make strata owners more aware of their collective responsibilities and get them talking about it, it's already been a major success. It strikes me that the law is pre-emptive: it's not saying if some one gets hurt you go to jail, it's saying if there a re conditions where someone could be hurt or injured and a competent person warns you about this and you then choose to nothing, that's when you are in trouble.
tell you want tho' – if ever any executive committee member is hit with such fines or jail time for failure to whatever – I predict a mass resignation from strata committees everywhere – and then governments will have to pick up the pieces – gee – why does no-one want to be a volunteer ?
Yes, but surely the simple solution is to have an OHS audit done of your building and then fix anything that needs fixing. Isn't that a better use of executive committee members' time and resources than tilting at Strata windmills
You say I'm a worker getting paid in kind for improving my property.
I say I'm a unpaid volunteer – if/when I get paid in cash – something I have never received in 20 years of strata committee membership – then I may think of myself as a worker. Until then I'm going to be referring to myself as an unpaid part-time amateur volunteer – and I'll argue that in court all the way – it would be unfair and unreasonable, harsh and unconscionable to punish me for something I did in good faith as an unpaid part-time amateur volunteer.
But you're not going to end up in court because you are diligent and law-abiding etc etc. Honestly, if someone came to you and said you had a loose balustrade on a common property balcony and eventually a piece of glass could fall out and kill or injure someone, are you really going to say 'I don't want us to spend money fixing this but if I get pulled up for it I will say I'm a volunteer'? I think not – but there are those who would.
But it's a valid question and I would be interested to hear if someone has a definitive ruling (preferably established in a superior court) on whether or not EC members are volunteers like charity workers under civil law or, effectively, members of the board of a corporation.