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I am a member of an EC in a small to medium sized block of units. Our executive committee over the years has had to deal with a history of extremely low levy rates and a building with numerous maintenance issues as a result of ineffective management.
All started off very well with renovation of overgrown garden areas with more manageable plantings, several rounds of concrete spalling “cancer” repairs, repairs relating to water-proofing and roof membrane works to name a few.
Most recently, a number of owners, have joined the committee and do attempt everything in their power to prevent necessary repairs and maintenance. This includes voting against painting works, necessary plumbing and drainage works to prevent flooding and necessary repairs/replacement of free-to-air TV aerials and cabling.
In a nutshell, these owners will only vote for any item that directly improves their own position and do not consider the benefit to the entire block or the valuation of the building as a whole.
There are of course considerations relating to personal finances that may arise from time to time as no-one is ever sitting on a pile of handy cash, but if the building is falling down around your ears, hard decisions must be made.
Unfortunately, it would appear that we are stuck with these individuals as there appears to be no effective way to have them removed from the committee.
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Lowanna – I think you’ll find most of your answers HERE, but if not feel free to post again.
I think it is a sad reality that you can always make heroes of yourselves in the short term by keeping levies down, but sooner or later things will catch up with you. Someone else, presumably your successor, will have to impose a really big ‘hit’ – a special levy followed by a substantial increase in ongoing levies.
Perhaps you can put the wind up people to get essential maintenance done by showing them what exposure to liability the entire OC might have if they don’t get it done. A one-pager ‘training note’ from Teys Lawyers could be helpful for this. They will send it to you on request, free. “Managing the risk of failing to repair and maintain common property” seems particularly relevant to your situation and it would be worth asking for others in the series. These sheets put the case clearly, briefly and bluntly citing a court case in which a unit owner was awarded damages of $150,000 because the OC failed to repair common property that resulted in damage to the unit and the OC faced a further $250,000 penalty if the OC did not get the repairs done within 3 months. Too bad if a unit owner did not have the cash to meet their share of the payment, they would have to sell or get a loan.
Print out a copy for everyone!
Peter C.
Great points relevant to me in last two items by PeterC and excathedra.
Our finances were ‘very healthy’ according to our Strata Manager. So the EC engineered a reduction of levies but at the same time, they have allowed the place to degrade substantially over two years. Less than the bare minimum is done here. Even the EC’s new cleaners and gardeners soon discovered the lack of supervision means they don’t have to do much at all for their fees which are blindly handed over by the strata manager.