New parking laws are NOT working as there is really no change for buildings with basement parking which is mostly the case.
Digital / Paper Committee Meetings are working fine in our over 250 unit strata with all owners / tenants sending their complaints and requests through the Strata Manager or Building Manager by email. It is only frustrating for those erstwhile Committee Members who can’t LIVE with that loss of power who try to ambush the Committee Meetings. Now they can’t.
Strata Managers continue to ignore or blink at strata laws so long as there is no stringent punishment of licence suspension / cancellation. Penalty points for violations are meaningless.If there is a violation by SM in one area, NSW Fair Trading must investigate if it is widespread in that strata management agency.
Strangely NSW FT says in its application for mediation that a dispute of Owners Corporation with their Strata Manager is OUTSIDE THEIR JURISDICTION !
In our own case SM paid 19 invoices totalling over $49,000 to Strata Committee Secretary’s private company for his so-called services ( time spent with lawyers, contractors, SM etc ) without following due process laid down in Section 25 of Strata Schemes Management Act 1996 ( that’s getting it approved at an AGM before making payment ).SM may blink at Strata Laws if they think same core Strata Committee continues year after year.
So it’s important NSW FT / NSW Government to amend SSMA 2015 to insist on SM / Strata Auditors to list ALL payments made to Strata Committee Members stating reason including reimbursement, amount , date in the Annual Report for the AGM and omissions of amounts over $1,000 should invite suspension of SM licence.
I hope Flat Chat publishes this comment as I am not giving any names while giving actual facts on which we are filing our Application for Mediation which they agreed we can after a direction from NCAT.