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Topic
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We’re a small group of villas. Most of the villas have a small garden at the front, and although technically these gardens are Common Property, we encourage the individual Owners to maintain their gardens. In the majority of cases, this is what happens, and these Owners plant the sort of stuff that they like, and this adds to the overall look of the strata. One or two of the Owners seem to show no interest in their gardens, and as a result, they tend to be overgrown, detracting from the properties.
The Body Corporate is responsible for the upkeep of Common Property,including gardens. However, if a gardener was employed only to maintain those gardens where the Owner doesn’t do any of the work themselves, this would be unfair on the majority who look after their patches at their own cost.
Is there any solution by which the non-maintainers can be encouraged to look after their gardens, say by a levy on all gardens, but refundable to those who can demonstrate that they are carrying out their own maintenance? – any other solution would be welcome
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Replies
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airman – the strict legal position under the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (1996) is that the Owners Corporation is responsible absolutely for the proper maintenance of its common property (which you acknowledge), that Residents whether they be Owners or Tenants cannot damage any plant that’s on any part of the common property, or more specifically in the situation that you describe, use any common property garden space for their own purposes, and that levy contributions may only be calculated from lot units of entitlement and cannot be varied in any way other than by a maximum 10% (disc.) for early payment where that’s been prior resolved by ≥75% of owners at a General Meeting.
Now that’s out of the road, I really DO appreciate what you and the other Owners (i.e. the Owners Corporation) are trying to do, but I’m afraid there’s no legal means by which those objectives can be achieved, and quite frankly giving Residents free-rein to plant whatever each personally chooses in common property gardens may prove problematic, particularly if those are at some stage found to be undesirable, noxious, or aesthetically unsuitable species.
So if the current state of play continues, then your Owners Corporation will be perpetuating a breach of the Act (by-laws) albeit desirable in its view, and be stuck with the costs of engaging a gardener to perform its maintenance obligations on sections of its garden space.