[daphne diaphanous]

Thank you Whale. I had read it. Our situation is different, but I cannot give any further details without making our complex identifiable. I will give further details when I can.

[daphne diaphanous]

Nearly Whale. You were right of course; it was a loaded question. The reason I posed it was because I had my own opinion on the subject & wanted to know if others, who are far more knowledgeable than me would have the same, similar or different/additional opinions. My opinion is that not having to do a report does not necessarily negate the need for it & it is well worth doing to protect the visitors, workers (we employ only the SM), residents & our insurance. That was the first point. The second point was, the reports were obtained in April last year & were not distributed at any time, nor were they put on the AGM agenda for discussion, which was at the end of November, in case of maintenance needs arising from them. And, the third point was, having finally obtained the reports in the last couple of weeks, we felt the need to ask for the instructions given to the reporting firm, because it had left out many obvious hazards. Having paid a large sum of money for two very inadequate reports, we will now begin asking questions (supported by photos) as to why those hazards were overlooked & demand a refund; then, lodge a complaint with the OFT due to the serious nature of omitted hazards & our resultant collective liability (insurance would not have been payable) for one or more serious mishaps, serious enough to cause fatality. Had we been able to see & read the reports in time, we would have put them on the AGM agenda & had a detailed discussion on the subject. Need I say more?   

 

[daphne diaphanous]

Your version of Murphy’s law was very obviously deliberate JimmyT. By the way, I have asked Choice to include strata managers among their subjects & pointed them to this web site, along with your name as its administrator. I hope you or the others don’t mind. 

[daphne diaphanous]

Entertaining & informative. Flat Chat is a great improvement on the newspaper I stopped reading, when it became a shadow of its former self. Thank you JimmyT.

[daphne diaphanous]

A large trellis with a sun loving climber & secured in a rectangular pot on wheels would do just as well. When the sunshine is required, it would be a simple matter of moving the pot out of the way. I’m assuming the sun block thus formed would not need to reach all the way to the balcony ceiling. 

[daphne diaphanous]

I would personally buy a strongly built room divider & insert the two ends firmly into two very large & heavy pots. Chosen carefully, it would look good, serve Tony’s purpose & because it is not a fixture, does not require permission from anyone. So there.

[daphne diaphanous]

Matt, you’re lucky it’s only $1,000. An elderly pensioner couple I knew a few years ago, had to come up with $10,000 (special) levied on each unit to underpin the sinking building. The old age pension being their only income, they were stressed & distressed to no end. I agree with the others; you need to take a serious look at your sinking fund.

[daphne diaphanous]

Thank you Whale. I want to know, because I am naturally curious & also because I want to be able to help others the way you do, when I grow up (in strata matters).

[daphne diaphanous]

Thank you again Whale. And, where would I find this information in the first place?

[daphne diaphanous]

Thank you Whale. We certainly do use our balcony at all times, but keep the noise down after hours, as a matter of courtesy. The inclusion of it in the by-laws is possibly intended as a hint of intimidation at the first contact with Stepford. There has been no problem on this issue, by the way. I am merely curious as to whether this is a common inclusion in strata by-laws.

[daphne diaphanous]

Dear kiwipaul, if only it were so easy. The management agreement is for the SM to deal with our present insurer only & the other owners were very hostile to my suggestion of looking at other insurers at the 2012 AGM. Needless to add, we get no quotes. You must have realised by now that I do withhold some information in order to preserve our SP’s anonimity in this forum. Thank you for your contribution though. You always make good sense, along with JimmyT & others. Wish me luck with my case history search.

[daphne diaphanous]

I agree with you JimmyT, it would be much easier to ask the insurer. However, our insurer will provide us with nothing, including the paperwork. They have told me that it is a privacy issue, because all papers are always sent to the SM, who takes out the insurance policy on our behalf. The SM on the other hand, does not even respond to our letters requesting various documents (only for the current year mind you, nothing that should be archived), but sends out the usual quarterly strata fees notice instead. The PDS is far too generic to be of any use in this scenario. We are not confident of obtaining all of the documents we require even in a more formal mode. As for taking any action on the subject, we already have a pending complaint, leaving document discovery to a later date. Meanwhile, a similar, but resolved case would be very helpful. Trudging through the Tribunal’s (now NCAT) case listing is the next option, which will take me a few days. 

[daphne diaphanous]

I was going to start up my own topic, when I came across this one. We bought into our SP just over 2 years ago & were given a copy of the by-laws at that time. One of the more interesting ones is the requirement to not use the balconies & other outside areas after 9 pm, in order to keep the noise down in the complex. Would anyone care to contribute opinion on this?

[daphne diaphanous]

Thank you Whale. The complaint against the S71 breaches is in & the other depends on the result of the complaint & something else, which I cannot discuss as yet. I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, I’d like to hear from more people with this problem.

[daphne diaphanous]

To add to my previous posting, I read recently that there have been proposals to reduce the current income & expenditure statements to simple, one page documents. Apparently, they confuse poor old owners with no accounting experience. Well, we have no accounting experience, but thankfully, had no trouble understanding them in their present form. All we had to do was take the trouble to read them & without that, we would probably not have noticed the irregularities. Our Section 109 certificate for which we had to pay good money, showed the property had no outstanding liabilities. We do beg to differ. It was clearly a worthless document. Without compulsory annual audits, this is what comes of putting the wolf in charge of the sheep pen & yes, I do mean sheep pen.

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