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I didn’t want to bore everyone so I didn’t mention there are a lot of other problems here. The inappropriate proxy cluster complete with ongoing vendetta. The unhelpful, dishonest strata manager. The inept, inexperienced, proxy-enabled executive committee. The good, sensible owners who are prepared to put up with all the crap but are kept off the committee.

‘@Just get on with it’, you make it sound so easy. What’s wrong is, there are a lot of decisions involving big bucks to be made and they’ll be made by people actually at the meeting, not by a majority of more sensible owners who stay away because the meetings are so awful and they want to avoid the stress. These owners won’t see the budgets, quotes, supporting documentation.

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Another thank you, thank you, JimmyT.

Would it be strrreeetttccchhhiiinnnnggg the friendship to ask one last question?

When an unsympathetic chairman at our AGM i.e. the strata manager, let’s the predictable abuse, personal attacks and disruptive interjections run, is a forceful request for a ‘point of order’ enough? Such as ‘Point of Order’ please Fred (the Chair). Should you ask for your request for a point of order to be minuted or something? Or is there some other way to make him deal with things properly?

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Thanks PeterC and Whale. Your advice is most comforting. I keep thinking of the saying (I’ve mostly heard to do with investment) ‘if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is’. There must be a saying around such as ‘if something is so obviously wrong, it probably is’. That’s the case here on a number of fronts.

I am also going to do what I can to try and get owners to come to the meeting themselves instead of giving their proxy away, especially to someone that asks them for it. I think I mentioned ‘proxy harvesting’ is one of the issues.

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I politely asked the Strata Manager in an email for more information on the agenda items for the big projects ahead of the AGM so I could arrive at an ‘informed decision’ on how to vote but he replied with one simple line, “These will be tabled at the meeting”. I doubt he even asked the EC.

I don’t think this is good enough. 

Can I propose motions at the meeting on the night to the effect that “I move that this motion be held over and not voted on because not enough information has been provided in time for owners to arrive at an informed decision.”

(Thanks PeterC, I will do this as well, while also hoping for more advice from Flat Chat readers, maybe even you, hopefully.)

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Of course you’re quite right JimmyT.

And there’s another side to it. We recently got ourselves a brand new pet by-law about that’s so fluffy, friendly, conversational and easy-going it’s very hard to understand. (Hello Simone.) I don’t think anyone can be bothered reading it. Consequently we’ve become known as a ‘pet friendly’ building and real estate agents are letting places to dog and cat owners left right and centre without mentioning you DO actually need to ask for and be granted permission in writing. Also existing pets are supposed to have been documented.

So let me sign-off by referencing this other bit of ‘gold’ from one of Roo’s posts:

Ah, “unreasonably” and “occasionally”.

Words that are music to lawyers’ wallets.

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I see the very helpful and very clever posters here are interested in the outcome of our ‘information night’ on solar power which came and went sometime ago. I apologise if I wasn’t clear on that and thanks again for your interest.

Almost nobody turned up (3 out of 36 and all on the EC and the Strata Manager) for various reasons not the least of which was timing; the evening of the first day of the school year. This seemed weird as a number of owners have school-age kids. It’s as if they didn’t want too many people to go. I think they are just going to take advantage of owners historical apathy and try and get the numbers to get a Special Resolution through to allow for the infrastructure to be installed—at Owners Corporation expense.

The things which stuck in my mind were, we need 15 people to make it worthwhile for the installers (which we are highly unlikely to get in my summation). We will need a crane to install the things three floors up. Cost to individual units will be between two and five grand, big variation, depending on how many people get it. Individuals won’t get our money back on it for possibly five years.

I doubt if non-resident owners (our building is about half owners and half tenants) are interested and I would think most resident owners wouldn’t see themselves still here in five years. 

There actually was some information about the hardware and, yes, there were a few figures but we are being asked to take a real leap of faith by an EC and Strata Manager who are demonstrably, well, untrustworthy. I confess I didn’t understand anything much except that ‘we might have to pay as much as five grand and I bet it’ll actually be more, AND we won’t get any money back for maybe five years and I bet it’ll actually be longer.

As I have intimated before the whole thing smells, to me. I think it’s being pushed along by the Chair and the SM.

I suppose the next step will be that we get more information with the AGM agenda which will presumably have an item for one ‘blanket’ resolution covering installation of the infrastructure.

Thanks again.

 

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KEB, in your most recent post (I think… I’m not liking what I think is the ‘pin a post to the top’ thing) I refer you to the ‘Roos rant in the 6/4 post, one of the best things I’ve read in Flat Chat. Take it away Roo:

“Why is sorting out this mess the OC’s job?

“Particularly for tenants who may be on a 6 or 12 month lease.

“Calling meetings, writing minutes, appearing at the CTTT to justify their position, appearing again at the CTTT to seek an order for removal of unauthorised pets, etc, etc.

“EC members are people too! And entitled to the quiet enjoyment of their lot. I’m not referring to barking, I’m referring to other residents dumping their self-inflicted problems in their lap.

“BTW, fear of noise, smell, soilage and wandering are not the only reasons some schemes ban pets. What if there are other residents with allergies? What about other owners who bought into a scheme because it was pet-free by By-Law? How do you quantify their loss?

Thanks for telling it like it is, Roo!

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This is a terrible situation and we had a similar one where we used to live many years ago. I suggest a whip round amongst all concerned residents to hire a reputable (or maybe not so reputable if you can see what I mean) security firm for a short stint to ‘nip this is the bud’ before your lives are totally ruined.

It’s amazing how quickly miscreants will fall into line once a couple of big blokes knock on their door with nightsticks in their belt asking ‘if everything’s OK’ or something helpful and positive along those lines.

Do it soon. My family and I suffered something akin to post traumatic stress for a long time after our problem was sorted out by a ‘security firm’.

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Whale, in studying this terrific information, I have a question gnawing away at me if you don’t mind. You say “…  I’d now be examining any proposal being put very closely, and particularly so in your case as like every other business person, your Chairman and Strata Manager have an interest making money on the deal – in this case from a captive audience.” 

Are you suggesting here, it’s OK or expected or acceptable that a Strata Manager  and/or Chairman (or any other Executive Committee member for that matter) might get a commission, discount for himself or kickback on this sort of thing?

The SM and Chair are really pushing hard for this at our strata, issuing advertising-like letters and flyers which I don’t reckon would survive if one was to ask Fair Trading what they think, I reckon the stuff is ‘false or misleading’.

My other question, I recall, was they are saying the costs for these mailings (well it’ll be a hundred bucks or more for sure) comes out of ‘disbursements’ but doesn’t that mean the OC’s money, in actuality?

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Thank you to the clever and kind people for taking the time to post here, raising all the issues. Scant and misleading information has been provided to us so far and I can now see what should be happening.

 

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Thanks kiwipaul. While it’s very hard to get any information out of them—the Chairman and the Strata Manager who appear to be the drivers and only keen ones—it seems individual owners who want solar panels will pay themselves but it’s unclear who will pay for the infrastructure and costs of getting by-laws etc. When asked what costs there will be to the wider Owners Corporation they cock their heads, metaphorically speaking, and act like you’ve asked them a rude question.

And we are 36 units. Three levels with 12 units on each level, so roof space above 12 units. So in the unlikely event that everyone wanted to get solar power, there isn’t enough space. 

I have been told the power will go into the grid which contradicts what’s said in their promotional flyer, if you take it literally and why wouldn’t you. (“… you could power your unit during sunlight hours for the next 25 years or more… ” A verbatim quote.)

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The big strata managers, the ones you speak of, have gotten very good at taking advantage of ECs who don’t know what they are doing, telling them ‘don’t  worry, we’ll look after it, get yourself on the EC, you won’t have to do anything, just refer everything to us’. Then they take the money and do as little as possible for it. They are very good at swaying with the prevailing breeze and knowing which side their bread is buttered on. Five years ago we had an involved clued-up EC; now we have a bunch of puppets to such a strata manager. Our strata has down hill to a great extent.

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It has been a while since my original post on this topic but my concerns remain. Our AGM is coming up in May, no date or agenda yet, and owners are receiving flyers in the mail from the strata manager with his name and the chairman’s on them offering interest-free finance on ‘SOLAR POWER’. ‘DON’T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY’ the latest leaflet screams. ‘Pending approval at the upcoming AGM in May, you could power unit during sunlight hours for the next 25 years or more…’ 

I view these leaflets as pretty ham-fisted. They are big on broad, un-backed-up, unlikely promises while very light on actual facts. Also these mailings, there have been three now, times 36 units, are being paid for out of our strata’s ‘disbursements’ but doesn’t that mean we are actually paying for them?

In short I smell a rat. I am wondering if the strata manager and / or the Chairman are in line for some commissions they are not mentioning when being asked. They have mis-represented the number of ‘expressions of interest’ they have had for one thing. I looked at the strata files and there was one reply in the negative while they claim they have ‘over a dozen’ positive replies.

The Strata Manager also tells fibs then becomes very antsy when asked such questions as ‘What will the costs be to the Owners Corporation’. He really won’t give a straight answer. The Chairman is one of those people who thinks they are lot smarter than everyone else and you should just accept his word on everything, no need to worry about pesky ‘facts’.

I fear an ambush at the AGM where we will have to approve by-laws allowing the building to have the infrastructure put in at the OC’s cost, regardless of how many owners want to be involved, and there won’t be many.

How can we keep the b

---

s honest?

 

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What Boronia says is not quite right in my experience. We’ve had fuse problems in the fuse box inside our unit and also in the meter room where there we have two additional, separate fuses evidently.

Agree of course, no one should really go into the meter room without an electrician, or at least someone who genuinely knows what they’re doing. Electricity kills in a flash.

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Yes it’s a very good look at the situation, as Whale says. Unfortunately the bottom line is (don’t you hate it when someone says the bottom line is) that when someone does something wrong in a strata community it takes way too long and is a much too cumbersome process to get things put right. It ain’t gonna be changing anytime soon and nor is human nature. What do we do!?

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