Struggs – back to your original post, I hate to keep relating my experiences, or mistakes in this case, but I’ve had a few over the years that I’ve been Secretary in our Plan, and whilst I’m hoping to one day run-out of them (i.e. mistakes; no luck yet) I made another one by giving a Resident Owner a bundle of the “Friendly Reminder” notes that we use exclusively for rogue parkers (as it was such a problem, and still is albeit less so).
These colourful postcard-size notes were designed using one of the more prominent on-line printers / suppliers, and in order to be recipient friendly they featured some nice advisory words and even the graphic of a finger tied with a piece of string on one side, and the wording of our Special Parking By-Law (SBL) on the reverse side. I thought that style of note would have the desired effect, and it did, until this Owner caused me all kinds of grief when he made it his role in life to camp in the carpark and place one of our postcard-notes on the windscreen of every single vehicle who parked contrary to that SBL, including contractors’ vehicles and those of the cleaners who service our Plan’s short-term rentals.
Thank heavens he quickly ran out of notes, so with the benefit of hindsight I’d say that Provided (note the capital) the Owner doing the advising is a responsible person who’s aware of the Executive Committee’s procedures and informs them of the warnings/notes that he/she’s issued (like you would be / do), then I don’t see how there could be a problem. If however that Owner is overzealous or purports that the note is from the “Owners Corporation” or “Executive Committee” as entities, then that could cause a problem if recipient/s become litigious [as in LadyJ’s post (#3)].
I know that Jimmy T keeps stating that a NTC is a warning and/or advisory note, and he’s absolutely correct, but as kiwipaul observed (post #4) and I’ve experienced (yes another one) the CTTT does give an O/C brownie-points if it uses a prior means to advise residents and others that they’re in breach. So for the time being we’ll persist with our little talks, followed by an Advice Letter (or postcard-note for rouge parkers), and only then issue the NTC; that seems to keep me out of the CTTT (and I’m really chuffed about that let me tell you).
As for the “stamp”, that’s a Corporate Seal and whilst an Owners Corporation doesn’t have to have one, if it does them the stamp has to be of a design that complies with, and be used in accordance with the Federal Corporations Act (and a similar Act in NSW). That means a number of things most of which I don’t remember, but I do know that the stamp is used on contracts (like Agency Management Agreements) and on all official documents (like NTC’s), and that whilst there can be a more than one stamp the extras have to include the word “duplicate” on the face. The relevant section of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (the Act) is HERE.
I hold our Plan’s Corporate Seal but then we’re self-managed, and in most instances such as yours the Executive Committee would meet and resolve to issue a NTC, and then instruct the Strata Manager to do that in accordance with the Act, including the placement of the stamp; so you (i.e. the E/C and O/C) probably don’t need to hold one.