Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
With all respect to Whale, whose posts I value as a source of information and wisdom, I was talking about something more substantial than “faults with every little nut, bolt, and washer … that’s loose or missing”. Noise from wooden floors is one of the hottest issues in Strata, as witness the report of the recent NSW review and the frequency with which it is raised in this forum. My point was a need to warn a potential purchaser, who may have done a careful physical check of the unit before bidding, that he could still find himself unexpectedly in breach of a key by-law.
This is a difficult area. On the one hand, one feels an obligation to ensure that an incoming owner’s decision to purchase is made on a fully-informed basis. On the other, one fears possible legal action if a disappointed vendor believes that he realised less than he expected because the sales process was undermined by existing owners pointing out undisclosed problems with the apartment. In one recent sale in my building, the owner (a local entrepreneur who clearly had no intention of living in the property) sought agreement to a plan to open up the kitchen area. We agreed to this, subject to an engineering report and local council approval. However, he also stated an intention to paint, generally upgrade and recarpet.
We were then taken aback when, without further notification to the Owners Corporation, he proceeded to instal wooden flooring. We asked him what measures were being taken to comply with our standard by-law requiring floors to be covered in a way to avoid causing nuisance to other residents (given that the layout of the building means that the apartment’s main living area is directly above a neighbour’s bedrooms). The response was the predictable data sheet from the floor’s supplier claiming full compliance with BCA and “strata” requirements. The latter is of course untrue, since “strata” does not require any numerical measurement of sound levels but, rather, a lack of disturbance to neighbours — something that can be determined only when the floor is in place!
My reaction to this was to ask that the correspondence be kept on file by our Managing Agent so that there would at least be the potential for a prudent would-be purchaser to be forewarned.
Further to my post of 1st November, I can report what may be a widening of this issue. An apartment on a main road close to the local shopping centre/transport interchange has for some weeks carried a larger than usual “sold by” sticker with prominent portraits of the selling agent and his young offsider. More recently, another sticker has been added below the first – “bought by” a buyer’s agent!
I await developments; will the selling agent react with outrage and remove the sticker that is, in effect, gaining a free ride on the agent’s hardware? Selling agents like to boast about the great prices they realise; buying agents do the same about how they keep the price down to a level that more than recoups the presumably substantial fees that they charge.
Who is winning – the vendor or the purchaser? Perhaps the respective agents are the only ones coming out ahead.
Whale has been generous in allowing seven days after settlement. My practice, when in a position to stipulate terms, was to make it 10 working days after exchange of contracts – which often means the day of an auction. A week after settlement could mean the sign, and the agent’s self-promotion, would stay in place nearly two months – or even longer.
‘Strata’ (more accurately, the Owners Corporation), is responsible for maintaining the common property, and this takes in pest control measures for the common areas. Contractors will typically offer to treat individual units at a discount, since they will already be on site and can spread one lot of travelling costs over more jobs. You should have been offered this opportunity when notified that the contractors would be visiting your building.
My SP (NSW) has the following as a special by-law, and we are surely not unique in this respect:
“SPECIAL BY-LAW 1 Essential Fire Equipment – Fire Doors”
1. This by-law applies to all lot owners.
2. Each lot owner has the right to replace and/or install the following:
(a) fire doors;
(b) locks on the fire doors, and
(c) door closers
3. The lot owner acknowledges that if the fire door, lock on the fire door or door closer does not comply with the fire safety requirements THEN the Owners Corporation may take steps to remedy that failure or non-compliance and in doing so the Owners Corporation had the right to:
(a) carry out all work necessary to perform that obligation;
(b) enter upon any part of the parcel to carry out that work, and
(c) recover the costs of carrying out that work from the owner as a debt …”
We have occasionally had to invoke it when unauthorised alterations have led to delays in the issue of the fire safety certificate required by the local council.
A missing or disabled closer would presumably cause the building to fail its fire safety inspection — an unacceptable circumstance. You should not be telling the managing agent this; any managing agent worth his or her salt should be telling the Executive that it has to be fixed at the owner’s expense. If the owner then has to take it out of a tenant’s bond, so be it!
Others will no doubt cite laws and rulings, but you do appear — at the minimum — to have a moral claim for a ‘like-for-like’ restitution, having regard to the market level of the original kitchen. It could get messy if you have recently lashed out on a major upgrade. There does seem to be a case for mediation, for your own protection, so that any payment from the sinking fund can be seen to have been determined objectively on the facts, and at arm’s length.
Where is Steiger based? My local council in Sydney’s east provides green-lidded bins for garden waste and also encourages residents to discard vegetable peelings, fruit cores and other kitchen waste via this route. Garden waste would not be welcomed in the regular red-lidded bins. Can Steiger ask for a green-lidded bin to be provided for his/her building?
Is Fuzzy quoting the actual current by-law in his/her block or interpreting reports of changes to be made in NSW in 2014? The Model By-law in NSW, adopted by most blocks, gives a positive direction:
“1. An owner of a lot must ensure that all floor space within the lot is covered or otherwise treated to an extent sufficient to prevent the transmission from the floor space of noise likely to disturb the peaceful enjoyment of the owner or occupier of another lot.
2. This by-law does not apply to floor space comprising a kitchen, laundry, lavatory or bathroom.”
Bare concrete throughout living/sleeping areas would most likely fall foul of this.
Otherwise you may be opening an argument about whether your proposed action would amount to ‘installation’ through removement of a presumably deliberate concealment.
A country-based dog of that size might be at risk of going ‘stir-crazy’ if confined within an apartment in the city.
Does Wirihana’s block have the standard by-law with the clause that permission to ‘keep’ the dog may not be withheld unreasonably? If the dog can be documented as a well-mannered example of a breed with a reputation for good behaviour, then a challenge to a refusal might well succeed on those grounds.
My personal position on payments to EC members (13 years not out in my case) and office bearers (five years in the chair) is to resist it on the grounds that it could be taken as creating a master/servant relationship — which some people see as existing anyway, but that’s another story. If I had been asked to nominate a gift on stepping down, I would have said a black cartridge for my printer and a ream or two of A4 to make up partly for my unheralded donations to the affairs of the scheme, but I was happy, and touched, to receive a gift card. No-one should be out of pocket as a result of contributing to the protection of perhaps the biggest single component of their personal wealth, but on the other hand they should not be looking to enrich themselves.
I don’t think GeminiBabe was being ‘bolshy’ — or at least I hope not! If you look at the Act, it says a lot about the Owners’ Corporation having to maintain the common property, but I couldn’t find anything about protecting occupants’ and visitors’ persons. Similarly, the standard by-laws enjoin proper dress and clean language, and can be used to stop kids from skateboarding in the carpark, but say nothing about stopping people from driving dangerously.
My scheme has posted standard ‘shared area’ warning signs with a 10 km/h limit (realistically about as slow as a car can be driven; 5 km/h is barely a brisk walk) but it has no ‘black letter’ law behind it. It was discussed at an Executive meeting and seemed an appropriate thing to do for various reasons. No-one has questioned our action and we would probably have the common law on our side if it was challenged. I don’t think we could measure speeds in the limited space available, and a smart lawyer could probably make mincemeat of us if it became an issue in determining liability in the event of a collision. We could say, if challenged, that we had made an effort to bring about responsible behaviour.
It would be interesting to know how this sort of thing is managed in public and semi-public (e g supermarket) carparks.
This has some puzzling elements. The phenomenon of a ‘rogue owner’ with ” … a habit of renovating properties with little regard to the neighbours” is, sadly, not unfamiliar. They are often good at making all the right noises about giving notice etc, but the resonant surfaces suddenly appear, and then the ‘for sale’ notice goes up with all the superficial glamour of what may really have been a ‘quick and dirty’ reno laid out the the advertising brochure.
Surely, from this point, it is ‘caveat emptor’ — it is not the responsibility of the Owners’ Corporation to reverse changes that are in conflict with by-laws — or just plain anti-social — made without its consent or knowledge. If a purchaser has suddenly found himself committed to expensive internal changes, it is unfortunate. However, ‘due diligence’ in checking strata records plus, if possible, some discreet informal contact with existing owners could help ensure the would-be purchaser is properly informed.
If, as MsM appears to be suggesting, there has been some collusion between, on the one hand, an agent looking to snap up a property for himself instead of seeking the best price for his vendor client and, on the other hand, a strata manager looking to help a mate work a cosy deal at the expense of the owners paying him to look after their interests, then it is a cause for grave concern. You would have to get the facts very well documented. It could be a case for criminal, rather than strata, law.
Boronia is right. However, depending on the building’s layout and location relative to the transmitter, some people who have tolerated a slightly fuzzy picture on analogue may have problems. As analogue reception declines in quality you get ‘snow’ etc, but with digital there is a fairly ‘thin’ transition zone from the usual brilliant picture through intermittent pixellation to ‘no signal’. There are specialists in antenna installations for apartment blocks who can check your antenna and the various relays in your building. Even in my block in Sydney’s east, with all three transmitter sites visible from the roof, there can be some interference due to conventional antenna leads picking up adjacent channels from one of the other transmitters. Quad-core antenna leads can help with this.
From observation of the numbers of cathode-ray TVs (and even the huge projection units) put out for kerbside cleanups, there can’t be too many people still watching analogue.