There’s a little-known fact of strata life that can affect all the decisions that your committee or owners corporations can make. It’s this – strata by-laws cannot supersede any other superior law and just about every other law is superior.
Take the Flatchatter whose committee has decided to designate the area in front of their townhouse as visitor parking. Great idea – everybody else gets the benefit and only one owners feels any pain, including having to reverse out on to a main road when there’s a car parked there.
Nice try but it isn’t going to wash. The number of visitor parking spaces in your strata scheme is defined in your Development Approval (DA). If you want to change anything in your DA, you have to get council approval and a by-law isn’t going to do it.
And, by the way, you need a special resolution to change the use of common property. You can’t just come up with the idea before the AGM and vote on it. If nothing else, you have to put the motion on the agenda and signify that this would be a special resolution requiring 75 per cent of the vote.
Our advice? Call the council and ask them to tell the secretary or chair to get their head screwed back on and maybe read up about by-laws, common property and DAs.
By the way, they might get approval for an extra parking spot for visitors, but it’s unlikely. However they aren’t going to get approval for a change that could force an owner to undertake a dangerous manoeuvre just to get out of their garage.
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Elsewhere in the Forum
- What happens if our strata insurance doesn’t cover all my medical bills for an accident that occurred on common property? That’s HERE.
- Rental agent says front door lock is a strata issue so the landlord won’t fix it. That’s HERE.
- My downstairs neighbour in an old block is complaining about noise, but I haven’t changed anything? What are my rights? And theirs? That’s HERE.
- Company quoting to fix our roof and other issues say their insurance won’t cover them unless they get the whole job? Is this a scam? That’s HERE.
- What’s happening with caretaker contracts? Depends where you live. That’s HERE.
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