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We’ve had this issue lately and I try and be reasonable but first I was abused by a newly moved in, drunken neighbour when I explained we weren’t the type of building where empty pizza boxes were left outside after consuming (we’d already put up with empty cardboard removal boxes which stayed for a week before our cleaner was directed to remove them).
Another neighbour kept their child’s stroller, same child’s push-tricycle plus occasionally other kid toys, together in a disused space under the stairs for weeks, even though their own, private lock-up garage was but 20 metres away.
Eventually, the committee asked them to keep the items in their garage in the most polite and sensitive way. But their reaction was extraordinarily aggressive and the items were left there making enemies unnecessarily with most owners. So the committee (presumably) had them removed, though they could’ve been stolen; there were many different tradesmen working in our building that week.
Consequently, my view is generally zero tolerance is best. If a pram is there for a couple of days a week, fine. But imagine if resident in our block of 36 wanted to leave their ‘goods and chattels’ under the stairs.
I’ve got it! Don’t mean to reply to myself (or hijack this original thread) but I will ask our Owners Corporation to pass a “Censure Motion pertaining to the Strata Committee over decisions made and minutes published from the Strata Committee meeting held on xx/xx/2017”. I will have the minutes in question attached to the agenda as an annexure.
I will also put an approproprivated version of the ACT Act referred to above as a ‘code of conduct’, as has been suggested.
Please, some feedback would be most welcome.
Interesting thank you Sir Humphrey but what if the unit owner was named and the minutes show ‘malice’? What motion might be moved? A vote of ‘no confidence’ or whatever?
Just on this subject of bullying in relation to meetings, agendas and minutes… Can I ask it is possible to have a nasty, inappropriate set of Strata Committee meeting minutes, which identify and shame, seek to marginalise persons unfairly… discussed at the AGM with a motion such as: ‘The Owners Corporation issues a vote of no confidence of discussion and decisions made at the Strata Committee meeting on February 31, 2016.”
Or can the whole meeting be ruled out of order? Or just something put ‘on the record’ to identify highly inappropriate proceedings and the documentation and decisions made (none of which were proper resolutions.)
It was a genuine lynch mob consisting of the Strata Committee protecting their ill gotten gains.
In my humble opinion, and I’m still a strata novice, he is wrong. While powers can be delegated to the Strata Manager by the Strata Committee and the Strata Committee can ASK for communications to be directed to the Strata Manager, no way is it an ‘invasion of privacy’ for you to attempt to speak to an elected representative on your committee. And they should, in fact, be willing to speak with you.
Have a google and look at the forms on the NSW Office of Fair Trading’s web site and maybe even NCAT and find reasons a Strata Committee may be found to be dysfunctional. Sounds like you may have a few different ones.
In my neck-of-the-woods, stuff-all notice is being taken of the changes to the Act encouraging transparency, probity and good governance.
I hope anyone more knowledgeable than I will correct me if I’m wrong or help further.
Bullying by executive committees and strata managers falls through the cracks. Strata managers know this and enable executive committee bullies because they think they know which side their bread is buttered on.
Bullying in strata is not covered by any of the Human Rights Commission’s succinctly defined categories. I have researched this and spoken to them. (It’s not racism or sexism or corporate, institutionalised bullying etc. etc. etc.)
Lawyers are expensive (got an hour to wait on the phone for free legal aid?). Defamation is for celebrities and media organisations. Bullies’ work is often done in the middle of the night. Police won’t help; they will only act if there’s physical violence or the threat of it.
Bullying in strata goes on with impunity.