A special by law is not a deterrent because the EC or SM doesn’t want whatever the owner is proposing. It is a deterrent in that the owner may think that little change he or she wants to make is not worth the extra money nor the added responsibility.
In the case of this complex the owners who wanted to change common property areas of their units wanted to do so without providing measurements, materials or any specifications. These changes would have to comply with council regulations. Therefore, one would need to know what the measurements and materials were. One owner actually said that he would tell us the details after we had approved it.
Neither of these changes would have been of benefit to all owners as these two units were end units and only had one common wall. Both of these owners argued and argued that they should be allowed. It was obvious that the EC was required to do alot of running around. And by saying the EC, I mean me at the time. So we were advised to firstly notify the owners that a special by law would be required to cover their works. And they would have to run around providing the evidence that these works complied with council requirements. They then decided that they did not want to pursue it.
We had another owner recently who proposed a generic special by law be drawn up for a change they wanted to make. Again with vague information and specifications. It was discussed at the AGM. No other owner liked the idea of this proposed change. And the owner in question did not want to pay for a special by law themselves. Not such a good idea with the extra money.
On the other hand we do allow such things as pay tv satellite dishes on the roof tiles. Even though most of us do not have pay tv. It is probably less then 25%. But we all agreed that this would be of benefit to the complex to allow this.
By my stating that special by laws can be a deterrent I meant that it may make the owner think twice about their proposal. They may see that it is really not worth the money let alone the extra money. And if you don’t think it is worth the money, is it really such a great change for your unit or the complex? And in all honesty, the changes the above owners were proposing were not good ideas. Would have looked out of place. And if they ever put their places on the market, I believe alot of prospective buyers would have been put off by them. So we probably saved them money in more ways than one.