[Cosmo]

 

For the purposes of making sure the official minutes that are put on file are accurate it is a great idea for people to make their own minutes.  However I believe an individual’s personal copies are most usefully used to stop “deceptive and unfactual” minutes becoming the officially adopted ones.  And that requires individuals disputing the official minutes to stop they being adopted.

It is the official minutes that go on record that are really the only important ones.  As the official minutes are formally voted on and accepted.  

I have seen it happen where a person has insisted on a certain wording in the minutes.  At the time the wording appeared pretty harmless but later the same person using those minutes to absolve them of responsibility for some wrong doing. 

 

[Cosmo]

Herve, I think the first step would be to challenge the minutes or not accept them as a proper record of what went on or was said . There should be a mechanism for you to do this.  

As always I recommend (prior to any meeting) gathering as much support from other owners as to why the minutes should not be accepted.

You can put your objections on the record straight away but make sure that an item is included in the next agenda outlining a challenge to the minutes and the reasons for the challenge.

At our AGM the first item on the agenda is the adoption of the minutes of the previous AGM. Of course, no one every challenges them (they are a year old and no one remembers what was said).  And mostly no one cares!

I have only ever seen minutes of any meeting being challenged once. The person challenging had obviously ‘done their work’ before the vote and the challenge got up.  

If you don’t do the above the minutes will stand as an accurate record of what was said and done and can be used to support future actions that may be just as ‘deceptive and unfactual’.

 

Good Luck

[Cosmo]

We are a much smaller strata but I have to agree with tharra’s suggestion of a dedicated email account. The account can be vetted by a member of the executive.  

 

Our strata has an email account where there are a series of generic questions anyone submitting a request must fill out eg, exact problem, date detected, units affected, suggested activity to fix.

 

 

 

 

[Cosmo]

Investor13, if you do a search on this site for trees there are a couple of informative posts on this issue.  In particular one by mattb on 14/3/13 and another by struggler on 25/3/12.

 

The view appears to be that if a tree is higher than a certain height (2 or 3m) it is OC responsibility but if smaller than that it is the owners.

 

There is also the memorandum by the land and property office on this called “Defining who is responsible for items and areas in a Strata Scheme”.  Section 2.5 and 2.6 say something about tree responsibility.  I don’t have the exact link for the memorandum but am sure a google search will help you find.  

[Cosmo]

Hi Louie,

 

In the normal course (I will qualify this below) my view is the tenants would not have any action against the EC or the OC. Their contract is with the individual owner.  If they were evicted in a proper way, I can’t see what possible action they would have even against the owner.

 

The only possible course the tenants would have against anyone other than the owner would be if they could prove that body or person acted maliciously or dishonestly with the intent of inflicting pain on them.  A very hard thing to prove in my opinion.

 

 

 

[Cosmo]

Herve, my opinion is that you can sue anyone for anything (think America) but a case against a member of the EC wouldn’t succeed unless you could prove negligence, fraud or other ‘bad faith’ actions by that EC member. 

 

As the onus of proof is on the person bringing the action, knowing a person did wrong and proving it are often worlds apart.

 

I have seen a lot of people start legal cases on ‘principle’ and then realise the financial realities are that they just should have accepted that they were duped and that as hard as it was they should have just moved on.

 

 

[Cosmo]

Just to add to scotlandx’s answer, I would imagine there are possible OHS consequences and responsibilities that the Owner’s Corporation need to be aware of.

See https://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au/newlegislation2012/Pages/strata-title-body-corporate.aspx

 

Allowing a hairdressing business to be conducted, even in a garage, has to be close to getting the whole strata lumped with extra responsibilities imho.

 

 

[Cosmo]

Hi Frans, in your original post you said there were 4 units in the strata and “We are the only owners who know anything about Strata etc.  The others do NOT want to know anything, could not care a hoot and refuse to discuss anything to do with Strata whatsoever.”  

And then in your most recent post “SM + OC minus us = disaster”. 

Both of your comments appear to be a common occurrence in strata.  Are you on the executive? Does your OC have an executive? Getting on the executive shouldn’t be that difficult if the other owners are disinterested.

My only other comment would be with only 4 units and the others not wanting to know, what are the chances of you persuading a couple of the other owners on the issues before meetings/votes etc.  You need to pick issues where you can explain the benefits to the others disinterested owners of the benefits of what you propose.  

Good Luck

[Cosmo]

Hi Whale,

I am not talking about any additional clause which could be incorporated in a (NSW) Residential Tenancy Agreement (a lease) document without the tenant’s agreement.  It would be just another condition of a lease contract that a tenant could or doesn’t have to agree to (if they don’t agree they just don’t enter into the contract and look elsewhere). I don’t see any barrier to an owner offering such a condition, as an owner when I rent my unit I have a ‘no smoking’ condition in any lease I draw up.  

I am not a specialist property lawyer but why wouldn’t a lease also give tenants rights to common property use? By restricting a tenants rights to a lot wouldn’t that be effectively what is done? It would appear a strange result to me if a tenant (resident as you point out) didn’t have rights to the enjoyment of common property. 

I would agree that the best, most amicable and sensible outcome would be “to become the “guest” of your tenant or of another resident on occasions” such as New Year’s Eve.  However that depends upon the largess of others and I was outlining the way an owner could perhaps secure theirs rights to occasions where, perhaps they were not confident of being accepted as a guest. 

 

 

[Cosmo]

Minakimo,

You say ‘intending to rent’ so it appears you haven’t entered into a lease agreement yet.  

I hope there is a lawyer who specialises in this are who can give you a more definitive answer but my view is for a standard lease, no you don’t have a right to the common property.  For the duration of a standard lease you assign all property rights to the tenants.  

Having said that, I couldn’t see a barrier to drafting a lease with a clause allowing you access for your purpose but I have no idea what form that clause or condition would take.

[Cosmo]

Frans,

 

regarding the late payment of the insurance. The late payment issue has happened to our strata a couple of times.  When I questioned our Insurance broker about this I was told that as we paid through an insurance broker our strata was covered for up to 3 months after our premiums became due.  

 

So it might be worthwhile to check if this is the case.  

[Cosmo]

Hi Fiona, I would have thought that in the circumstances you outline the strata could not grant permission because of section 116 and 117 of 

STRATA SCHEMES MANAGEMENT ACT 1996 (assuming you are in NSW). I am sure there would be similar provisions in other states.  

 

S116 provides that owners, occupiers and other persons not to interfere with structure of lot or services to lot; and 

 

s117 that: Anowner, mortgagee or covenant chargee in possession (whether in person or not), lessee or occupier of a lot must not:

(a) use or enjoy the lot, or permit the lot to be used or enjoyed, in such a manner or for such a purpose as to cause a nuisance or hazard to the occupier of any other lot (whether that person is an owner or not), or

(b) use or enjoy the common property in such a manner or for such a purpose as to interfere unreasonably with the use or enjoyment of the common property by the occupier of any other lot (whether that person is an owner or not) or by any other person entitled to the use and enjoyment of the common property, or

(c) use or enjoy the common property in such a manner or for such a purpose as to interfere unreasonably with the use or enjoyment of any other lot by the occupier of the lot (whether that person is an owner or not) or by any other person entitled to the use and enjoyment of the lot.

Please excuse the formatting but the input box for my answer is playing up.

[Cosmo]

Parking is obviously a very touchy subject. I guess each Strata needs to make up its own mind about how it enforces parking and other bylaws for that matter. Let me outline why and how our practices work in our strata.

 

Our Strata was built over 30 years ago, before the days when it was mandatory to put aside dedicated parking. We have no visitor parking, nor is the street parking readily available, there is some but it is on a steep hill and then only a few spots.

 

There are a few locations on the common property where parking does not cause inconvenience to other owners. One of these is beside the driveway where there is space for three cars. These unofficial visitors parks are used for short periods by owners at times. Also there are are a few units where owners parking directly outside their garage present no obstacle or nuisance to others owners enjoyment of common property. There are other owners where to park directly outside their garage would cause obstruction and nuisance to others. So we only allow some owners to park directly outside their units.

 

If the Strata were to strictly enforce the “no parking on common property rule” it would result in everyone being treated the same but a lot more inconvenience to everyone. This is because such enforcement would result in:

 

1. no visitor parking at all; and

 

2. no owners ever being able to park on common property even when they could safely and unobtrusively do so.

 

So even the owners that don’t get to park outside their garages get the benefit that when they have visitors they can tell them to park in the ‘visitors’ parking spaces. Also such owners often use these ‘visitors’ spaces themselves for short periods. The owners who are allowed to (maybe I should use the word “tolerated”) park outside there garage VERY RARELY use the ‘visitor’ spaces.

 

I think all owners accept, some more begrudgeingly than others, that there are benefits in the parking practices we live under. Having said that if we got one or two owners who insisted that “if I can’t park in front of my garage no one can” we might be in deep trouble … but so far so good! .  

[Cosmo]

 

Greg,

In most complexes there are bylaws that are bent to some extent by express or tacit agreement. For enforcement it is up to the Executive to follow through.  If the single garage owners are allowed to park, it all depends upon how ‘cheated’ the double garage owners feel. 

 

I would have thought that the following statement especially use of the word ‘designed’ doesn’t carry much weight when against the bylaws. “The complex was actually designed to allow the single garages to park in front of their garage to give them a second spot – plan showing this has been sighted.”

 

I would just ask the following questions:

 

1. Does the parking in front of the single garage create a nuisance or other wise deny others of the use of common property? By saying that the complex was ‘designed’ to allow it I would have thought no.

 

2. I would then ask the same question re parking in front of the double garage, does it create a nuisance or other wise deny others of the use of common property?  If the answer is also ‘no’ the double garage owners have a strong case (or so I think) to be treated equally with single garage owners.

 

 

[Cosmo]

Hi Whale, I find your posts of great value and agree that ALL those things you listed need to be done. However, on a daily basis there are many things we all do that involve just as many tasks and obligations. The crucial difference with Strata is that any person who does these things is doing them also on behalf of others and for the common good.  

 

If you think about owners of ‘freehold’ properties, car owners and even pet owners, there are numerous and these days onerous obligations on owners.  

 

In most cases we the exception of a few critical things I think common sense and courtesy will ensure that with a few exceptions self managing can be performed and the rewards significant. At this point I realise making an extensive list, as you have done, is a great idea.  My reply is only to say there are many things that we all do as part of our normal living that are, in many cases, just as complex as self managing.

It is a bit like doing a job and then reading the job description.

[Author]

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