Strata committees are obliged to enforce the by-laws of the building when they are found to be in breach – a fact that was pointed out to me by then Fair Trading minister Victor Dominello, who referred to his citing of “duty of care” in his second reading of the current Act.
If they refuse to do so, you can initiate proceedings under a Section 232 (2) request for orders from NCAT, starting with the obligatory application for mediation at Fair Trading (a process that’s free of charge).
Fair Trading mediators won’t adjudicate – that’s not why they are there – but if you don’t get a written undertaken to take remedial action by a specfic date, you should consider moving ahead with the application to NCAT.
If you want to put a scare into the committee, you could suggest that since they got legal advice at the owners’ expense, and then chose to ignore it, you will also apply for costs to be awarded against the individual committee members due to their misuse of ownewrs corp funds.
I don’t know if that will fly, but it will probably get their attention.