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Hello Jimmy
It would be interesting to know whether the by-law totally excluded pets from that strata complex, as most are worded that approval for pets may not be unreasonably refused. In sending the pictures to the resident, I feel that there is an inference that the resident is less than honest, and a legal professional might like to comment on that aspect. Defamation proceedings perhaps?
With many potential residents wishing to keep an inoffensive companion animal, which has no adverse impact on their fellow residents, I think that the OC in this case may be shooting themselves in the foot. My experience has been that some residents would not purchase a unit unless they were able to legitimately move in with their animal. A strict no animals policy could have a detrimental effect on the value of the property when it comes to sell or lease within that strata plan.
Hi again
You’re correct in that painting ceilings (and walls for that matter) is normally the responsibility of the lot owner. Since you’ve only quite recently repainted your ceilings you’re obviously not just trying to get a fresh paint job at the expense of the OC. Jimmy and Whale have raised the issue in previous discussions about who pays when damage is caused to an owner’s property as a result of work being carried out by the OC, and the view was that the OC should be responsible to reinstate your unit fully to its pre-existing condition. Where insurance comes to the party and any excess is involved, the OC should make up the excess.
Hello newisie
In your case of the ceilings being damaged, they aren’t part of an owner’s property, but form part of common property. So the Owners Corporation is responsible for repairing them, they must maintain Common Property under Section 62 of the Strata Schemes Management Act. (provided you are in NSW)
Your Owners Corporation should have required the window company to have had adequate insurance cover prior to engaging them for this work, and taken note of the policy details. Since you maintain the damage to ceilings was caused by them an insurance claim should be lodged against the window company and their insurer for the cost of reinstatement of the ceilings to their pre-works condition.
Hello RL
There are a number of factors to consider in your desire to put in a solar panel. It unfortunately requires much more than a nod and a wink from your Executive Committee. You would need a licence to occupy part of the roof as effectively you would be acquiring common property for your exclusive and personal use. I’d suggest you refer to the following website, which to me sums up the issues involved quite succintly.
You’re right to be concerned. Obviously the strata manager is protecting his interests in having the matter listed each year. What I cannot understand is your focus on the Executive Committee. It’s the owners, present in person or by proxy at the Annual Meeting who accept or reject each motion listed on the agenda. You have a right to speak for or against each motion at the AGM. Do you attend the AGM, or direct your proxy to vote for or against the motion? So what happened over the last three meetings? Unfortunately a lot of this stuff happens when owners are disinterested and leave it all to others, it’s pleasing to see you are concerned about the matter, but you need to take part in AGM decisions and influence other owners to also do so.
Presumably you are talking about water consumption charges rather than the fixed or standing supply charge billed directly to the owner. If you are in NSW, and only have one meter for the complex, then the account for water consumption would have been sent to the Owners Corporation for payment. As such you should be paying for consumption as part of your levy charges from the Admin Fund, and your levies should have been assessed according to your unit entitlement. Unless all your unit entitlements are equal you should not paying an equal amount for consumption to the other owners. If some units have more land than others within their lots, then presumably their unit entitlements would be greater and they would be paying more through their higher levies.
Do you have a Managing Agent? If so he/she should be able to explain it to you.
Keys and remote security devices are the responsibility of the owner to keep and maintain. It should have been given to you in working order. However batteries in such devices don’t last forever, and could result in a loss of code.
In my complex there is an automatic gate and the owners have from time to time run into problems with their remote devices. I have obtained replacement devices for owners, at their expense, when the originals were lost or damaged. Our owners are fortunate in that I am able to program these devices and do so without charge.
In essence your EC are correct in passing on the cost of programming your remote. In hindsight you should have sought recompense from the previous owner for the cost of fixing the inoperative remote.
You are basically correct, in that only the external walls and their rendering are part of common property. Walls which are only internal are part of the lot, and hence up to the lot owner to maintain.
However the Owners Corporation could be involved in the event that your building is fairly new and still under warranty, in which case a claim could be made against the builders’ insurer.
As the the old saying goes, a verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it is not written on. A lot of problems arise in Strata Schemes when informal arrangements are made. I’d agree with Fair Trading that the common property remains, and that you shouldn’t touch the fence. Your wish for the common property to return to its original use seems quite reasonable. The options available to you are set out in the dispute resolution procedure available from Fair Trading. The first step is mediation, if that is unsuccessful you can apply for adjudication of the matter. Just do a search for strata dispute resolution and you should find the relevant fact sheet.
There are modest fees for the process, which should not deter you from taking this action. Good luck!
Whilst I didn’t see any mention of it in the SA Act, it would have been good practice for the Manager to ask for any motions from all owners to be put to the Meeting. Ours in NSW does so every year in plenty of time for the meeting.
The SA Act provides for notices of general meetings to go out at least 14 days prior to the meeting, so in your case it’s too late for anything to be added for a 10 June Meeting. I can only see it being appropriate for any extra motions to be considered at a later meeting with the requisite notice being given.
Regards
Dave
I note that nowhere have you mentioned any payment being offered for electricity supplied to the neighbour. Your meter box and fuses or circuit breakers would have been designed for the supply to only one unit. If it has a power point then that is limited to 15 amps, if that circuit becomes overloaded the fuse will blow or the breaker will trip. Your neighbour will require much more power if they are to run any heating or cooking device. If circuit breakers or fuses are tampered with, then you run the risk of causing a fire with overloaded wiring. Additionally many extension leads are only suitable for indoor use, if used incorrectly they can cause electrocution hazard. I am staggered that a Strata manager would request that you supply electricity in this manner, given the hazards involved. Hope they have a substantial professional indemnity policy, they’re going to need it with advice like that.
Hello bubbles
If the “extreme exhaust” from the vehicle you refer to is emission of excessive amounts of smoke, you can report the matter to the EPA here:
https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/esdsmoky/
If I were in your shoes I’d also be discussing the positioning of the air conditioner intake and any building requirements for sealing your unit against car park exhaust fumes with the local council, they also may require some sort of effective extraction equipment to ventilate that area in the event of limited natural air circulation, particularly where basement areas are involved.
Dave
Jef
I’m presuming that the 10 units with own meters are billed for their water consumption directly to each owner, based on meter readings. That means that the remaining 9 are billed to the owners corporation. Your new strata manager is correct in that the cost of the water should be recovered in proportion to unit entitlements rather than equal proportions from those owners connected to the common meter. I don’t know whether you need a special bylaw, if it’s put forward and accepted it would do no harm but if rejected it may be necessary to approach NCAT.
Dave
Hello CBF
In NSW the answer can be found in the RG’s directions:
It is the responsibility of the surveyor to show the schedule of unit entitlements, however the information should be provided to the surveyor by the developer. The unit entitlements should be based upon the market value of the lots. Attention is drawn to section 183 Strata Schemes Management Act 1996.
So the market value would be influenced by such factors as unit size, aspect, and views.
It is recognised that there may be a need to change the schedule of unit entitlements after the plan is registered. Once again from the RG’s directions:
Change of unit entitlements
Changes may be made to the unit entitlements of a scheme in several ways.- Upon registration of a strata plan of subdivision which involves common property it is permitted to alter the unit entitlements for all of the lots in the scheme and change the aggregate. This will require the provision of Approved form 11 indicating the owners corporation has passed a special resolution agreeing to the changes.
- An order may be made by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) to reallocate the unit entitlements of a scheme if at the time the plan was registered they were unreasonable or over time they became unreasonable. See section 183 Strata Schemes Management Act 1996.
- Upon registration of a notice of notice to convert a strata lot to common property the unit entitlement for the lot will be removed and the aggregate will be reduced by that amount.
Hope that info helps to clarify the situation.
Dave
The flexible hose and kitchen cupboards are not common property, but they are considered as part of the building and so are required to be insured as part of the building by the Owners Corporation. In this case they have been damaged by water caused by a sudden failure of the hose, and therefore in this case an insurance claim should have been lodged by the Owners Corporation on their insurance company.