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Topic
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Living in NSW.
I am now part of the Committee.
The post. “How do you compel committee to do what owners have agreed?” made me wonder how Owners can agree to anything if we, the Committee don’t seem to be allowed to talk to the Owners/ Tenants/Maintenance staff and discuss with the other Committee members about issues. It seems like good communication is only available to those who have a great Strata Management / Chair.
In the Strata Laws, is it formally written in the current laws that the Committee ARE / SHOULD be allowed to talk to, most importantly each other, and then to Owners and Tenants to discuss/resolve issues?
Because at the moment, I am wondering how can any of us resolve anything if we are only allowed to talk to 2 or 3 out of 20 occupants or only through Strata Management?
Thanks for any feedback!
s.
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So what’s stopping you from communicating with other owners? You are entitled to see the addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of other owners in the block. Privacy (the usual excuse) is not applicable here.
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In our community of 30 apts and 2 retail tenancies, our founding vision was for intentional community i.e. we would be good neighbours to each other and work collaboratively together. Luckily we attracted a number of owners who are committed to both this vision and to effective communication. We set up a Slack forum even during the build stage so that we could share info and concerns. We ask owners and tenants if they want to be in it, and they supply their email addresses for that. It was quite disappointing when Slack changed their business model and now (unless we pay an exorbitant amount for a bigger plan) our exchanges “time out” at three months old. Once we moved in we started producing and distributing regular community newsletters as well.
This year the management committee drafted a comms plan so that we could see where our communication gaps were. As people have widely varying needs and styles of communication, we wanted to make sure we had enough “channels” to reach most people with most messages, and also that we were safely storing information for future reference.
This is all driven by active owners, as the strata manager keeps only the official and financial records and issues only terse legalistic messages. They are also subject to staffing changes, and the corporate memory is lost with every replacement.
So what’s stopping you from communicating with other owners? You are entitled to see the addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of other owners in the block. Privacy (the usual excuse) is not applicable here.
Not quite. You are entitled to some of that.
Address for service of documents you are entitled to.
If it is an email address then it depends on if the owner has notified the OC the email is for service of documents at which point it becomes fair game.
Phone number – do not know where that idea is coming from.