@scotlandx said:
…….. So the Owners Corporation will have to resolve to go to the mediation and authorise someone to act on their behalf, and also to reach an agreement with you, if they think that is appropriate……….
SSMR 2010 says,
24 Attendance and representation
(1) A mediation session must be attended by each party or by a legal representative, or other representative, having authority to settle the matter.
(2) Other persons may attend a mediation session with the leave of the mediator.
But that is not how it works according to Michael Courtney of OFT. Must does not mean must. I put it to Mr Courtney at a mediation that the other party made no resolution to attend and questioned if the other party had authority to settle.
His response was to the effect that Reg 24 was not operated by OFT as it reads. Anything that came out of the mediation would go back to the EC for ratification so that the other party in the mediation did not have authority to settle was not important.
Some readers might like the following:
83 “……………. ‘Must’ means ‘must’. It is an imperative – expressing necessity, obligation and compulsion…………….”
Justice J Pembroke in The Owners – Strata Plan No 70798 v Bakkante Constructions Pty Limited [2013] NSWSC 848 (19 July 2013)
I would encourage the more strata curious readers to go to the case and see the context of the comment and how the Justice viewed the failure to “must”.
Then consider going through the Act and Regs, using a find feature of some program, and see all the things that “must”.
I would encourage everyone to throw the comment of Supreme Court Justice Pembroke at CTTT when dealing with some dispute over a section of the Act that has the word must in it, until CTTT understand that must means must.