Current Page

[Anonymous]

We have been having some acts of vandalism in the garage areas of our residential area. Cars parked in the visitors car park have their tyres slashed. As well the underground garage rolling door has had its motor wires damaged at times and once the photocells also damaged. A Police compliant has also been lodged. As a result, the photocells apparently caused the rolling shutter gate to fall on a car. The car owner is a unit owner and an ex executive committee member who lost the last election. The car owner got his car repaired through NRMA and is now claimimg that the EC should pay the repair bill (around $2000) to NRMA. As well is threatening to file a civil suit against EC as well personlly against all the Ex Comm members.

 

Would appreciate advice as to whether the OC is liable to make any payment to the car owner/NRMA ( Claim letter has only been received from the car owner and not from NRMA). Also are EC members personlly liable ?

 

Thanks

Topic

[Jimmy-T]

Sounds like your former EC member is on a revenge trip. The Owners Corporation (all owners) is liable for any damage caused by faulty common property so, for instance, you might have to pay the excess on the owner's insurance.  If the car insurer want's more, they'll ask for it.  As far as personal liability goes, your EC should have insurance, just in case you make a mistake.  If you don't, get some. 

Personal liability only comes into it when you have been told there is a problem and have chosen to wilfully ignore it even though you knew it might impact on owners, residents or anyone else associated with the building. That could be construed as wilfull negligence whioch probably wouldn't be covered by your insurance.

In other words, unless you knew this was going to happen to the ex-EC member's car, you're probably covered … and it spunds like you are well shot of this bully.

If you want to be alerted when anyone replies to your posts or responds to this topic, please register and login, then you will be able to subscribe to the topic. The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers. NB: Longer threads may spill over to additional pages - look for the numbers on the bottom right, under the last post.

Quote

[Anonymous]

The personal liability of executive committee members is something that executive committees often overlook. 

As an executive committee member you have a common law duty of care to all entrants, invited or not, arising from your actions and omissions in connection with your strata scheme. 

You also have statutory duties and obligations under a wide range of commonwealth, state and local government laws and ordinances. For example, the duty to provide safe working conditions to contractors entering into your strata scheme to do work on common property under occupational health and safety legislation (even though you may not be the employer).  Breaching statutory duties can result in awards of damages and fines against you and the owners corporation, and in extreme cases, imprisonment.

An owners corporation may carry a range of insurance to cover risks including the risk to it and you for breach of your duty. The terms of cover are usually set out in the product disclosure and policy documentation and may include specific exclusions. 

Executive committee members may want to consider entering into a Deed of Indemnity to cover gaps in your risk cover as an executive committee member. This type of arrangement is common in the public listed company sector. A deed of indemnity will oblige the owners corporation to make good any loss you suffer, which is not covered by insurance.

Kind regards

Simone Balsara

simone@teyslawyers.com.au

https://www.teyslawyers.com.au

Quote

[Author]

Replies