The 1973 Act makes interesting reading, if you’re not out fighting bushfires, or watching all-day sport on TV.
58 (3) An amendment of, addition to or repeal of the by-laws has no force or effect until the Registrar-General has, pursuant to a notification in the prescribed form lodged in his office by the body corporate, recorded the notification on the folio of the Register comprising the common property.
No mention of a 2 year time limit for registration.
58 (7) Without limiting the generality of any other provision of this section, a body corporate may, with the consent in writing of the proprietor of a lot, pursuant to a unanimous resolution make a by-law in respect of that lot conferring on that proprietor the exclusive use and enjoyment of, or special privileges in respect of, the common property or any part thereof upon such terms and conditions (including the proper maintaining and keeping in a state of good and serviceable repair of the common property or that part of the common property, as the case may be, and the payment of money by that proprietor to the body corporate) as may be specified in the by-law.
No need to dig out the Minutes from archive to check for payments for the granting of the exclusive use rights or the ongoing continuance thereof. If there were any, they should have been written into the By-Law. But you might like to check whether the Motion was unanimous, seeing as the word was omitted from the registration.
The clause above also explains the 2nd paragraph in your By-law, the one about conditions for repeal.
But wait, there’s more …
58 (9) (b) … is, unless excused by the by-law, responsible for the performance of the duty of the body corporate under section 68 (1) (b) (i) in respect of the common property, or the part of the common property, to which the by-law relates.
The current Act says an exclusive use By-Law must define whether the OC or the exclusive use owner is responsible for maintenance of the common property involved.
The Act under which your By-Law was made assigned responsibilty for maintenance of the common property involved by default to the exclusive use owner unless the By-Law said otherwise.
Any real lawyers care to comment?
CCB, what you haven’t told us is:
a) Did you check the original strata plan to see if the area was just “open space” or designated as visitor and/or resident parking?
b) What maintenance worth $50K is planned for what I’m assuming is about 200 sq.m. of open space?