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We had an owner in our strata who (without permission) created a 3rd bedroom in the roof space (which is common property), along with a drop-down staircase. The committee only found out about it when he went to sell it. They called the estate agent and assured them the townhouse was a 2br, and that the alteration of a 3rd BR would have to be rectified by any new owner.
The owner removed the townhouse from sale and restored the roof space.
Were it not for a vigilant committee, that owner would have made a $400,000 (the difference between a 2br and 3br) profit and any new owner would have been stuck with an illegal renovation.
I’m the Chair of a scheme of 40 townhouses. Last year we passed a Motion at the AGM to install 3 EV charging stations. We repurposed 3 of the 20 visitor car spaces, painted them green, and installed the chargers. We’ve had no issues.
We also passed a resolution at this year’s AGM to ban charging of “(a) electric bicycles, electric scooters, electric skateboards and the like, and
(b) children’s electric ride-on cars, trucks, motorbikes and similar devices,
but does not include road-registrable vehicles such as electric cars, motorcycles, trucks and the like”.anywhere in the complex.
We’ve had to be fairly vigilant because we discovered some people had wired powerboards into the light switches of their garages. Aside from the obvious danger of this, the garage lights are run off the common area circuit.
Thanks for this thread. As Chairman of our strata committee, I’ve had a lot of trouble contacting owners regarding problems within their lot. One ongoing issue has been a collapsing pergola (which was never approved). The only contact details the strata manager has is the property manager of the real estate, who is regularly delinquent at her job. To communicate with the owner, I have to rely on our SM to contact the PM, then wait for the PM to contact the owner, for that communication to play out, then for the PM be bothered to reply to the SM, who might then get back to me. It’s an absurd situation.
I’ve asked the SM to assemble a list of contact details for all owners. He’s said it’s contrary to the Privacy Act, (though he won’t elaborate as to which part).
My question is, is there a definitive ruling as to whether the Committee can compile a list of owners’ contact details? Is this situation really stymied by the Privacy Act?
I think a law compelling tradesmen to obtain a written Work Order for common property work from the OC might stop a lot of these issues. Most tradies won’t ask questions with this sort of work; making them liable to fines or rectification might short circuit the problem. That would be similar to the obligation tree loppers have to sight Council approval prior to cutting down large trees.
The EC member is correct. Unless the wall being altered is a common wall, the owner is not required to lodge a DA or a by-law. There’s no requirement for a vote by other owners either.