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We are about to have a General Meeting to go ahead with having our building nbn upgraded to Fibre to the Premises (FTTP),
This item on the agenda seeks agreeement that each lot owner should pay $275 for this upgrade.
I would have thought that this is an improvement to the building and therefore should be covered by Body Corporate.
Am I correct?
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The OC pays. NBN charges them $275 multiplied by the number of units. That’s all units – NBNCo won’t connect less.
The OC may choose to raise the money by a special levy. If so, the contributions are in proportion to unit entitlements. Provided the OC is better at arithmetic than it is at strata law, the average might be $275.
The motion will need to be expressed as a special resolution and will need at least 75% by value of votes cast.This is because it seeks to vary the common property.
One way or another, the owners are paying for this, whether it’s a direct $275 each, or via the OC which means that owners with larger unit entitlements pay a bit more and others pay less. The fairest way seems to me to be that each owner pays the same as this is a direct benefit to the individual apartments, and the benefit to each apartment is the same. If your building has internet-enabled services in the common areas then you could argue that portion of the cost should be split via unit entitlements, but for such a small amount that doesn’t seem worthwhile.
There’s an intrinsic anomaly in all of this which is that an external body (NBN) is dictating strata policy. The law says that common property costs must be charged on the basis of unit entitlements. NBN says the installation must be all or nothing. The OC is responsible (very generally speaking) for infrastructure up to but not into individual units. The OC can’t really issue a compusory charge on any basis other than UEs. And there will be some people who don’t want high-speed internet anyway.
One elegant, if slightly dubious solution would be for the OC to offer “free” installation to all owners, but pay for the installation out ot OC funds. Or find some way of categorising the upgrade as a fire safety provision.
But, to be honest, strata is full of illogical charges – like people on the ground floor having to contribute to lift maintenance or balcony repairs – so you could distibute the charges according to UEs and let the losers take you to the tribunal if they feel sufficiently aggrieved.
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The meeting to make the decision is next week. I’ll let you know the outcome as there must be others experiencing the same dilemma.
Please do. It’s all valuable experience and information.
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This item on the agenda seeks agreement that each lot owner should pay $275 for this upgrade.
A good Chair might call that motion out of order for the very reasons expressed by JT above, i.e. the cost for this (s 108) matter should be based on unit entitlement (UE).
You might like to, for fun, ask the Chair to make a ruling on the validity of this motion as it appears to be contrary to the Act in that the cost of such an improvement to the common property should be based on UE and the motion seeks to do something else.
Nothing like putting the agent, or even more funny a volunteer, in the hot seat by asking for a such a ruling.The wording of the motion would be useful to see.
Does the motion actually say that by SR the OC approve of the addition to / alteration of the common property.Here is where s 108 gets a little entertaining as it is for ” the purpose of improving or enhancing the common property.”
Not really doing that are we, we are more realistically improving the amenity of the lots by making this change to the commons. The Act doesn’t really say much about changing the commons for the purpose of improving the amenity of the lot outside of what s 110 allows.
Still this seems to be a UE based cost.
Shared living – has its ups and downsOne compromise might be to split the accounting so that the provision of the cabling to the outside of the apartments is covered by one amount, payable through OC funds, and each apartment is charged a nominal fee per connection. That way, the upgrade of the building is shared by UEs and individual owners can choose whether or not to pay the connection. Lets say in a block of 50. the OC pays $275 x 50, then charges $175 x 50 back to OC funds and tops up the account as people pay for connection. Every body who signns up in the initial phase gets connected at a low cost but then and every year thereafter the connection cost can rise to cover the additional work and interest on the shortfall.
Too simple?
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