@Silly Cow said:
Are there no enforcement remedies for breach of NCAT orders contained in their legislation?
I don’t know about the NCAT. In the ACT, the ACAT can make orders but does not have the power to enforce those orders. Nonetheless, failure to comply with an order is an offence.
Where I live, we had an owner who failed to comply with an ACAT order that she must remove an unapproved structure from her unit. In order to have the order enforced, we had to go to the Magistrates Court for an ‘enforcement order’. The owner attempted to use the magistrates court to re-argue her case that she should not be required to remove the structure. The Court was very clear that the matter had been examined by the Tribunal and it would not entertain anything other that determining how the owner would comply with the Tribunal’s order. At the Tribunal, we (members of the OC’s executive committee) had anticipated that if we received the orders we were seeking, the owner might not comply with the order and we asked the Tribunal how they might then be enforced. The Tribunal helpfully set out the enforcement procedure in its written Decision and Reasons document. Essentially, we needed to seek an enforcement order from the magistrates court pursuant to a particular magistrates court rule. The Court gave us the order we sought and the owner then complied. We did not apply for an order that the owner pay the fine for failure to comply with Tribunal order. We just wanted the unapproved structure removed with the least fuss and ill-will.