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Hi – I’m wondering if anyone on this thread could offer some direction for a desperate and frustrated landlord?
I own a small property and three years ago the strata agent for the block stole the sinking fund and disappeared. The owners had to inject a large amount of extra levies to bouye the fund up – and it then came to light that the agent had mis-managed the block for years. When a new agent was appointed – the admin and sinking fund fees increased from circa $350 per quarter to $950 per quarter! My unit has been on the market for the last year and a half but is not selling due to the strata fees being so high compared to other strata managed properties even across the road! IT’s located in a small country town in NSW.
A small portion of the stolen funds were returned by Dep. of Fair Trading into the sinking fund – but the inflated fees are to remain while the strata agent says they ‘recover’ from the years of mis-management. The main issue is knowing what rights we owners have in this situation – as clearly the previous agent was fraudulent and we (owners) are paying for it all – at no fault of our own.
How are we protected here or what can i do to find out what rights I have? The current agent says they don’t have records (payment advices/insurance policies/and basically anything dated before July 2012). And the only dealing with Fair Trading they had was to get the sinking fund reimbursement.
Any help you could provide me with would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks