It’s worth asking the “cold feet crew” to explain their concerns. There was a view around some time ago that NCAT was an expensive exercise with little chance of a good outcome for anyone. I believe it has been substantially reformed and it’s more financially accessible these days. $256 would barely pay for someone to run a vaccuum over your common areas – it’s not a lot of money.
So are they concerned because in their eyes NCAT=expensive? Or are they concerned that you don’t have a good case and you might be asking for something unreasonable (and therefore lose)?
If it’s any help, I spent the first six months of this year navigating unapproved renovations in 2 of the 6 apartments in our block. Rather than demand that the renovations were reversed (which would have taken us into NCAT), we chose instead to demand that the owners had the renovations assessed by an engineer and fire safety people. The lot owners agreed to do this, because they didn’t want to go to NCAT either. These various assessments resulted in a number of expensive updates to the renovations, but the substantive work (which actually improved their apartments and made no difference to the appearance of common property) passed all the tests. Regrettably, the unapproved work included them installing equipment in the roof cavity, which is common area. But overall we decided that this wasn’t serious enough to be bothered chasing it to NCAT, and the roof cavity work eventually passed all the fire safety and engineering tests. My point being, not all unapproved renovations need to be reversed – it really depends on how you all feel about what has been done. But make sure you pass a resolution that the OC does not take responsibility for any damage to common property caused by the unapproved renovations, and that any damages are the responsibility of Lot X to repair. Lot X won’t vote in favour of this, but everyone else should. In our case, we passed this kind of resolution and eventually, after all the fire safety and engineering assessments came back clean, we approved the renovations and the lot owners registered a by-law. We also made sure we had a record of all the trades they had used with license numbers and contact details, and warranties for all work. Same as if they had got the renovations approved in the first place.
Of course, if the unapproved renovations in your building are unbearable to you all – perhaps they have painted their balcony bright pink, or built a sub-structure in the common area, then you’ll have no choice but to go to NCAT and work through the process. It’s my understanding that a majority committee vote is enough for you to proceed, but someone else will know this for sure.