I hope you get some positive action from NCAT etc. What a mess your block has got itself in – and despite your active interest in it even you can’t get to the bottom of it.
One thing that I can’t get past is that there are, in most unit schemes, two charges to unit owners:
1. Quarterly strata levy for day-to-day running (paying common accounts such as insurance, electricity for common areas etc); and
2. Quarterly levy for the sinking fund. The sinking fund is to cover maintenance issues that arise – some short term (emergency fixes eg broken light fitting in common area) and some long term (painting the block).
At some stage expert advise should have been sought to estimate how much you need to hold in your sinking fund – or to put it another way – how much owners need to be levied to build up reserves so that when maintenance issues arise – you have a fund to dip into.
If there hasn’t been an accumulation into the sinking fund over time a Body Corporate may need to suddenly jack up a levy to get money for things that need to be done NOW. But if nothing needs to be done immediately for safety reasons (as Sir Humphrey points out) there’s no need to raise all the money RIGHT NOW.
And, to repeat the point, it should be raised as a special levy and not as an increase in your strata levy.
Best of luck and let us know how you get on.