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I live in a strata townhouse complex. My neighbour (single connecting wall – downstairs lounge, upstairs main bedroom) is a fellow owner-occupier, although he rented out his apartment for around 8 years, from just after I bought my place in 2002 until late 2010. Since he returned in 2010 he has been renovating. Not on-and-off, DIY a renovation job and take a break, but what appears to have been every weekend since 29 October 2010. In the first place, no notice was given to any of the residents (owner/occupier or tenant) that invasive renovation work was going to be carried out. In the second place, this carried on, every day for three months. Since January 2011, when he started working, it has been going on every weekend (except for when he went on holidays, and I cannot certify that it occurred when I was overseas for a number of months either). Some weekends he started at 7am, like the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the weekend that he used the concrete planer to level his part of the communal concrete slab in order to lay floorboards. The sound and the vibrations were enough to start a war. They were even enough that other residents in the small complex complained about the noise, those that weren’t on the communal slab. But all our complaints fell on deaf ears (probably caused by all his renovating). It is now April 2012. How long is long enough? It appears that renovating is his hobby. Over the Easter long weekend he renovated for 14 hours on Good Friday, starting at 9am (My knocking on the door at 8.30pm was not answered), continued into Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday (again until 9.30pm – again the knocking at the door was ignored). At present it is only myself (and the neighbour on the other side of me) who is affected by his constant hammering away, and continuous use of powertools. But the fact that only one or two people out of 13 are bothered by this noise is not sufficient reason for the body corporate to do nothing about the noise! I have made complaints. I have sought resolution. All to no avail. I have a right to the quiet enjoyment of my property, a right that has been denied to me for eighteen months now. The breaches of the Strata Titles act that I have identified are thus: S116(2), S117(1), Plus the primary by-law: An owner or occupier of a lot must not create any noise on a lot or the common property likely to interfere with the peaceful enjoyment of the owner or occupier of another lot or of any person lawfully using common property. Am I correct in this? We have our annual meeting next Monday. But I am concerned that he will start renovating again this weekend when I will have my partner and his children staying with me. Is there any way I can seek an immediate injunction against his continuing renovations?
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Two (2) years is long enough, and assuming that your neighbour has not received a consent to his renovations from your Owners Corporation (O/C) and that the Model By-Laws contained within the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (1996) [the Act] have been adopted by your O/C, you are absolutely correct about the breaches of that Act and of the By-Laws.
Whilst you can certainly raise the matter of the possibly unauthorised works and the breach of By-Laws at your Plan’s AGM, nothing can be “officially” resolved by the Meeting unless the matter is on the Agenda; and I’m guessing that it’s not.
That’s not to say that your Strata Manager and/or your Executive Committee (EC) should not heed your compliant by expeditiously discussing the matter with your neighbour and, depending upon his reaction, issuing him with a Notice to Comply (with the By-Laws) under S45 of the Act.
If your Strata Manager and/or EC don’t address the matter to your satisfaction or if your neighbour doesn’t comply with the Notice, then you may independently lodge an Application for Mediation of the matter with the NSW Office of Fair Trading, where if mediation is unsuccessful your complaint may progress to Adjudication where a decision will be taken, Orders made (e.g. to alter the times of or to cease renovations), and Penalties imposed for non-compliance – see https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/Tenants_and_home_owners/Strata_schemes/Resolving_issues_strata_schemes/Strata_and_community_mediation.html
Hopefully, your Strata Manager and/or EC will be able to resolve the matter because that’s their role, but if not, make sure that you have properly documented (at least) all the matters included in your Post before heading down the Mediation path.
Finally, you can always involve the Police by making a noise complaint, and whilst that’s a last resort in my opinion, I’m not suffering the noise disturbances.
Thanks Whale. I appreciate your response so quickly (much quicker than my strata manager – who is apparently NOT my strata manager anymore, although following discussions this afternoon the new one is sympathetic to my plight and has agreed to raise this following the completion of agenda items on Monday).
So, regrettably, it looks like I will only be able to make a complaint this weekend (they were unable to contact my neighbour) in the event that he breaches the council laws on noise.
And, by the way, the new strata manager confirmed they had not received any request for renovations (of any nature including the renovations he undertook of common property).
I guess it’s a wait and see situation – meanwhile, I (not-so-quietly) go insane!!
You can always raise these issues yourself with Fair Trading and ask them to issue Notices to Comply. Or make sure the complaints are on the agenda of the next EC meeting … or get your new, user-friendly strata manager to issue the NTCs.
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