Current Page

[sbbkbb]

I have a question in regards to a common property in our
building which was sold few years ago.

I purchased a unit 2 years ago and only moved in around 12
months ago. When I bought the property the strata plan had two common properties listed on it. One was a common property store room, the other one was common property plant room.

I have now discovered that around 5 years ago these two
rooms were sold to an individual who was a member of the EC at the time, in fact he was a treasurer.

So, at an AGM 5 years ago he obtained 4 proxies and basically
it was only him and the strata manager who attended the AGM. So, during this AGM, the 2 common property rooms were sold by a treasurer to himself as a buyer, and he signed and approved the transaction on behalf of the body corporate. The sum that this was sold for was only $12,000 which is a ridiculously low price and this area has been renovated and now it is being used as commercial property.

How can a treasurer sell a common property (and sign this
transaction) to himself? Isn’t this a conflict of interest? I was advised that
all of this was legal as he had the proxies, no-one objected, etc. However, the price was only $12,000 which was way below market price, there were only 2 people present at the AGM. On top of this, current EC members don’t know where the $12,000 went and they have raised this issue with the strata company, but they never heard back.. On top of this, his strata levies are significantly lower compared to other commercial properties in the building, on the same floor, with very similar size. Isn’t there an issue of OH&S here as well, as one of the rooms was a Common Property Plant Room and as far as I am aware it had something to do with air conditioning and ventilation of the building.

Thanks

Topic

[Anonymous]

Strata Management in New South Wales IS currently a fair bit different to most other large companies, Jimmy.
It’s not regulated, the new-ish industry body which is supposed to be knocking the industry into shape, isn’t. Try making a complaint about one of their members to the ISTM. You’ll get nowhere.
The whole management structure of the… err… ‘large one with offices all over the country’ all speak the same language as our strata manager Fob Off Fred. You should see my collection of emails from them all, including head office, signed off with such bon mots as “Do not contact me about this matter again”.
Worst of all, while saying on one hand, ‘We can only do what the executive committee says’ they advise the executive committee on how to fob off legitimate complaints.

Quote

[Jimmy-T]

ISTM – now called Strata Community Australia – has come a long way in the past few years, pulling a some rogue operators into line and refusing at least one major developer full Strata Manager accreditation, for obvious reasons. Admittedly, they were a long way behind the eight-ball to begin with but you have to give them credit for the improvements they have made.

I know it’s frustrating and I’m a great believer in shaking things up occasionally – certainly changing strata managers when you’re not happy should be an option (although I have known strata managers who’ve been sacked because they were doing their job too diligently) and that didn’t suit the EC of the time.

To be honest, I think the biggest problem with strata managers is that the good ones aren’t paid enough for the work they do, so they start spreading themselves too thinly over too many clients. But what happens when they raise their fees to reflect the amount of work they should be doing is that someone else slides in underneath and undercuts them.

If the Government demanded minimum standards but also set minimum fees, everybody would be better off.

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.

Quote

[Author]

Replies