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Sssssshhhh. I realize to all intents and purposes everyone here in this forum is anonymous so I feel most comfortable. The Executive Committee in my building likes to be anonymous too. They put their first initial and name on their EC meeting minutes but not their unit or their contact details. Also they don’t seem to do anything. They are completely passive and the place (36 units) is looking decidedly shabby. There are obvious points that need attention, just about everything is in poor repair.
Any complaints or questions or problems are referred to our strata managing agents who really do nothing except call a plumber in an emergency and there is one of those every three or four months.
Anyone who rocks the boat trying to improve things gets identified as a trouble maker, singled-out and mildly named and shamed.
Cleaners of the common areas are hopeless and gardeners are worse. Seems nobody is overseeing them.
I recall from our Annual General Meeting half a year ago we have a healthy bank balance but obviously nothing has been spent from it. What do you think I can I do, anonymously, so as not to make any enemies, to get things fixed up please.
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If you went to the AGM, then you would have seen who got elected onto your executive committee. If you don’t like what they have been doing, then vote them out next year and nominate yourself for executive committee.
ccbaxter,
I don’t know the size of your strata or your social skills in terms of your OC. In would appear you don’t want to put yourself out there as a trouble maker or confront the EC. I can idenify with your position and I am sure most people can. My view is that in terms of strategy you need to find like minded people. It has been my experience in Strata and corporate life that many decisions are determined before a meeting.
Sound out other owners at a level you feel comfortable with and see if others want to take action also. Perhaps after a while you might find you have enough like minded people to make agendas?votes go your way.
If you sound others out and the feedback you get is that you are basically on your own then you have to make the decision is this a big enough issue and do you have the personality to make waves on your own.
What ever happens, good luck!
Register a .com (not .com.au) website and pay extra for it to be anonymous.
Get the cheapest hosting you can find.
Create a website with WordPress.
Protect its content with a password
Load it up with lot of material detailing your gripes (try not to make it personal, defamatory, abusive or generally nasty)
Send a note saying “do you want to know how your EC is costing you thousands of dollars a year?” to all owners.
Include the website address and the password
Communicate only using the website’s email facility.
This will cost less than $80 – roughly the same as a complaint to Fair Trading.Be prepared for dog’s abuse when they find out it’s you – and they will because you won’t be able resist telling someone that you are SecretStrata.
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Keep it factual and financial avoid emotional and, especially, personal. Even when a decision was (or wasn’t) made by the Chair, attribute it to the EC. Be wary of anything that seems spiteful or is defamatory.
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Guess what, someone in my building went ahead and did all this and now the poo has hit the propeller.
It has raised a few issues about privacy and secrecy and, as predicted, the dog’s abuse has been forthcoming. Now I am involved because I kind of gave them a leg-up with the advice below so I can’t leave them hung out to dry.
(This website was quoted in an email from our chairman who proudly boast that he never reads my column.)
Anyway, this has led to a big think about privacy which is a valid concern but which a lot of Executive Committees use as excuse to maintain secrecy. As in, “we won’t tell you who’s standing for a vacancy on the EC because it’s an invasion of privacy” and telling owners they can’t have other owners addresses – or even EC members contact details – for the same reason.
Have a look here and tell me if you think there is or should be a legal limit on how much contact owners can have with other owners in the same strata scheme.
By the way, I am revising my thoughts about secrecy. I reckon if your point is important enough, you should man (or woman) up and take any brickbats or bouquets that may be coming your way. Otherwise it undermines your credibility, apart from anything else.
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@JimmyT said:
…By the way, I am revising my thoughts about secrecy. I reckon if your point is important enough, you should man (or woman) up and take any brickbats or bouquets that may be coming your way. Otherwise it undermines your credibility, apart from anything else.I agree. Anonymous notes in letter boxes tend to be inflammatory in my experience. Anonymity removes a pressure to be scrupulously fair and accurate in the contents of the communication. Being fair gets respect and good results eventually. Backing off just to keep the peace can make things more comfortable in the short term but stores up problems for later and trains the noisy minority of bullies that they can get away with being selfish at the expense of the quiet majority who would rather not stick their necks out.
When I was on the EC, I was the first point of contact. I had a lot of messages left on my own personal mobile, mainly from the SM.The mobile phone company I was with at the time charged me for retrieving messages. Whe I left the committee my mobile phone bill decreased quite a lot.
I had asked at an AGM if we could gett a mobile phone to have as a direct contact. I was thinking of one of those mobiles that you get for kids which only enables you to dial 5 numbers and is locked for anything else. In this way members of the EC could have turns at being “on duty”, covering weekends and evenings when the SM isnt available. This was given the kibosh by owners, owners who were,not on the committee, never had been, still aren’t and yet complained just recently about wanting better contact.
I had reasoned that this mobile phone would allow EC members to have their mobiles for their own personal purposes, owners would only have to know one number on speed dial for the EC no matter who was on it each year and would know there should always be someone on the end of the phone. I had a call once whilst standing on the great wall of China. Wouldn’t it have been better to know that the number you rang would be answered by someone within spitting distance of the complex and the problem at the time?
The names of the EC should be documented in the AGM Minutes.
You could also attend the Strata Managers office and perform an S109 search on the strata plan’s records which allows you to obtain contact details of the other owners.
True – but this EC is saying that you can see the names and addresses but you can’t use them to communicate with the owners. Of course, they then use the same list of contacts to send out electioneering piffle. This is where the whole privacy argument starts to get a few holes.
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Trouble is the privacy argument is spurious. The EC members bought into a partnership with other people therefore they have have a responsibility to communicate with the other owners regarding their jointly owned asset.
If the EC doesn’t want this sort of interaction they should not be involved with Strata.
I think the main issue here isn’t EC members not wanting to be contacted by the owners, it’s the EC not wanting owners to use their contact lists to communicate with each other, which my EC says our strata manager says may be illegal and an invasion of privacy (although I suspect there may be some selective reporting of what actually was said).
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How silly to get into spurious debate over what and if… put your money where your mouth is and say what you need to at the next AGM or AND put your hand up to be on the EC and be productive. All very well to bag out volunteers though they may very well be incompetent, so give it a shot yourself and see how the shoe fits. Perhaps you could do better and get rid of the lazy bums, but if you are not prepared to put yourself on the line, well… oops! did I say that out loud?
Cheers and best of luck,
CBF
@considerate band fair said:
How silly to get into spurious debate over what and if… put your money where your mouth is and say what you need to at the next AGM or AND put your hand up to be on the EC and be productive.What we’re talking about here is where the EC isn’t open and fair and you can stand for office as much as you like but you know the EC and their loyal supporters, plus those that they have convinced the sky will fall down if they aren’t elected, are going to vote themselves in every time. Then you get all the nastiness of the filthy looks and muttered imprecations as you walk around you own homes.
Friends of mine were bailed up in a cafe nearby by a friend of one of our EC’s ruling group when they said they wouldn’t be giving their proxy to the chair – and this woman doesn’t even own or live in the building!
Nothing spurious about this discussion at all. It can get very nasty and this is your home, after all. People feel isolated and frustrated and wonder if making their point is worth all the abuse they will inevitably receive. Roll on the end of proxy harvesting.
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