I learnt my distrust of NCAT from you. Your cartoon of a clown presiding over an NCAT hearing is seared into my brain.
I should be more careful with my insults. Here’s my take on NCAT: applying for mediation often does enough to stir committees into action and if that fails, applying for a Tribunal hearing can also do the trick. If nothing else, when strata committees know they are doing the wrong thing to save money, they prospect of spending more on lawyers to defend an indefensible position shakes up their ideas.
Where it all becomes a crapshoot is when you actually get to the Tribunal and you are subject to the whims of Members. Mostly they will look at the law and decide logically whether or not it has been breached. Often you will get the odd ones who will decide to rewrite strata law on the fly (as happened in the recent pet cases).
But if you do go to the tribunal. make sure your application includes a demand for costs, not only will that scare your committee just a bit more, it is the only way your costs will be covered if you win.