Question;
1. The SSMA is littered with penalty points for failure to comply but offenses by the OC against the Act require a party to take the OC to the Local Court.
225 Proceedings for offences
Proceedings for an offence against this Act or the regulations may be dealt with summarily before the Local Court.
If the applicant is successful then an OC would get a fine of X penalty points.
Called transaction cost in some legal texts – if the transaction cost is too high then it will have significant impact on the use of the legal rules.
Given the cost and effort (transaction cost) to take an OC to court for small penalty for a failure under one of the sections of the Act that carries penalty points how are penalty points at a local court a functional deterrent ?
2. During the submission stage of the Strata Law reform numerous owners brought up the issue of unreasonable OCs in relation to pet approvals.
How did the Minister speech to the Parliament and proposed change address that issue, i.e how did it address the existing problem?
3. In a recent release from a leading Sydney law firm it was said that s62 is one of the few sections of the Strata Act that actually means what it says.
What is the use of the bulk of the Strata legislation given it does not mean what it says, what caused the erosion in meaning and what protections will the new legislation have to see that it will still mean what it says in the future?
4. Proxy farming was a major concern in the submission stage of strata reform. The issue was proxy farming, the solicitation of proxies. Will strata reform go too far and limit the number of proxies an owner can have or will it ,more rationally, limit the number of proxies a person can solicit?
(Can the Parliament make valid legislation that removes a persons right to appoint an agent (proxy) of their choice? At our last AGM one owner had more than 5% of proxies and every one of those proxies approached that owner, there was no farming or solicitation.)