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[gregor]

Hi,

new member here with a question for the forum:

we are the only owner/occupiers in a six-unit strata building in Sydney. we’ve recently had new tenants move in to the unit next door.

loud parties and general abusive behaviour aside (they’re real charmers…), the major problem we have is that they have one visitor who persistently parks in either a registered car space for one of the other tenants, or on common property in such a way that the garages are blocked.

We’ve asked him to his face, twice, to remove his car and explained that there is no visitor parking – there’s even a large sign at the entrance of the property that clearly states the same.

His response has been a none-too-friendly ‘f#%k you’.

The question is this: Since we’ve asked the tenants to tell their friend not to park there, and they’ve ignored that request, are they technically in breach of the strata by-laws regarding parking and visitors?

If so, can we get the EC to issue them with a notice to comply.

Also: are the tenants responsible for the behaviour of visitors to the property? If so, can we ask the EC to issue some sort of warning about them being in breach of their lease by allowing loud / abusive / carpark-stealing visitors onto the property?

We’re at our wits’ end. these new people have only been living here for four weeks, and they’ve already managed to turn the entire unit block against them. We’ve had to call the police twice (once over the noise, once over the threats that the visitors made against me, in the presence of the tenants who did nothing to stop him, even when asked).

I don’t want to be ‘that guy’ in the unit block – but I don’t feel like I’ve got a choice any more.

Any and all advice appreciated.

gregor

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[Jimmy-T]

Tenants are responsible for the behaviour of their visitors so get that Notice To Comply in the post as soon as possible.

The standard tenancy agreement states that they have to abide by the by-laws so you can tell them the next letter will be to their landlord demanding they be evicted because, by being in breach of the by-laws, they are also in breach of their rental contract.

Also, think about taking a Noise Abatement order against them at the district court – it's a criminal offence to ignore one of those. Collect as much evidence, including notarised depositions from neighbours, photographs and recordings of noise as you can.

And finally, point out to the landlord/agent that a recent court decision means landlords are responsible for the behaviour of their tenants if they receive legitimate complaints and do nothing about them.

The threat of fines and/or eviction may persuade the tenants to either behave or move on.

If you want to be alerted when anyone replies to your posts or responds to this topic, please register and login, then you will be able to subscribe to the topic. The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers. NB: Longer threads may spill over to additional pages - look for the numbers on the bottom right, under the last post.

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[gregor]

Jimmy,

Thanks so much for replying – and it's great to read that we can actually do something about this.

like I said, I really don't want to be the 'that guy' of our block of units, but they've really left us no choice.

I'll take your advice, and I'll advise of the outcome so that if any other people come to the forum with similar issues, they'll see that there is something that they can do about it all.

thanks again…

gregor

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[gregor]

A quick update –

We took the matter up with the owner of the unit, and the strata manager.

The owner of the unit got back to us quite quickly, explained that he has 'had a word or two' with the tenants, and that we won't be having any more problems with them – and if we do, to notify him straight away.

As a result, we've held off further involving the strata manager at this stage – if we need to, we'll get him involved down the track.

thanks again for your advice, Jimmy.

gregor21

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