Kiwipaul said: BUT did the OC or EC pass an ordinary resolution approving any of these improvements because if they did then they have got approval for their alterations with the OC having to maintain them (due to their being NO SBL defining maintenance responsibilities). This to me is a crazy situation.
Perhaps the Strata Schemes Management Bill’‘s use of the phrase “common property rights by-law” will overcome the understandable confusion that currently exists about special resolutions of an Owners Corporation automatically leading to or requiring special by-laws.
Changes and additions to the common property of a Plan can only receive the consent of an O/C if >75% of those in attendance at a General Meeting, both personally and by proxy, vote in favour – and where that percentage is determined from the units of entitlement (UOE) of those voting and the aggregate UOE of the Plan (i.e. a “poll vote”); that’s a special resolution. Under this scenario the works can proceed, and the O/C is responsible for the on-going maintenance and repair of whatever it is that’s been consented and thereby attached / added to its common property.
Only where an O/C wants to make the current and future Owner/s of the consented changes (instead of itself) responsible for its on-going maintenance and repair, and the current Owner agrees with that proposition in writing, is it then necessary for a new by-law to be prepared and Registered on the Strata Title for the Plan; that’s a special by-law (SBL).
If an O/C believes that the nature or type of the consented works may result in future identical applications by its Owners, with each of those having to come before a General Meeting, then it may make the SBL generically applicable (i.e. to all Owners) and thereby delegate future decisions of that nature or type to meetings of its Executive Committee.
It’s due to this confusion and the fact that Owners in our Plan would routinely go ahead with alterations and additions to common property areas of their lots without first seeking the O/C’s consent, that years ago we created a registered a SBL that required the O/C (read: “me”) to create and maintain a Register of Additions and Changes to Common Property, and that contains provisions that in essence state that anything that’s not in the Register is the responsibility of the Owner from time-to-time of the Lot (where the addition / charge occurred). It works a treat!