[fcd]

If there’s another alternative, I’d really like to know what it is!

Maybe the chink is via insurance? The risk to OC’s and all owners is that building insurance is partly/completely negated by uses contrary to legal frameworks – town-planning/zoning/permissions, plus occupancy limits imposed in fire-regulations, etc.

Would/could an insurer or the insurance council pre-emptively provide guidance on this? Or do we need to wait until some future claim is refused for the message to get out and, finally, sink in?

Ultimately strata owners are on the hook for any and all costs that the OC sinking fund can’t cover. If rebuilding/repairs required andif insurance refused then all owners can be liable for $$$.

I can imagine then an affected OC will have to become very, very familiar with its’ debt collection options. This could be complicated if the building is unhabitable; an owner might choose to walk away from their lot and its’ debt obligations, leaving the OC with no recourse (ultimate/final) to sell the lot to recover the debt as the lot could be worthless. (other than the lot’s share of land value which would be near impossible to sell without a usable lot)

[fcd]

This is all fine, except our apartment is on the 6th floor, and below us is 5 floors of CARPARK. So, thinking that the by-law was a bit unreasonable to be applied to our apartment, we took it to an AGM.

You’re assuming that noise created at the floor can only travel downwards.

My recent experience is that concrete slabs are very, very good at transmitting noise sideways.

There’s a couple of units in our 8-pack being renovated at the moment. A few weekends ago there was lots of banging and hammering and it sounded like it was coming from the unit directly above me. Given that unit is tenanted whatever they were doing was inappropriate so after nearly an hour I charged out ready to give them a “serve”. Fortunately on my way I discovered the noise was in fact coming from a unit two positions along the building.

So noise transferred to the building structure can quite easily travel via structural elements of the building.

[fcd]

It strikes me that it would solve a lot of problems in strata  if everyone who sets foot in or drove into a strata building was told that they either accepted they were subject to strata by-laws … or they could leave.

It beggars belief that that legal principle doesn’t that already exist both in theory and in practice.

All the advice I’ve seen regarding problem parking, especially for non-resident car owners, is that they can’t legally be touched. The practical upshot seems to be that the parking thief’s rights to access and property protection supersedes the rights of residents to access their garages/parking bays, supersedes the right of the EC to have contractors access the building to perform repairs and maintenance, supersedes the right of the Body Corporate to control/manage improper access to private (albeit shared) property.

Why?

ECs should be able to take timely, preventative action without turning the property in to a jail. However all legal options seem to be limited to reactive steps involving considerable effort, delays and expense. A case of too little too late.

My interest in finding a solution (Qld) is fast becoming critical. As the owner of the end-most garage on an adequate (but not wide) driveway I regularly have to deal with my access being blocked by other residents, their visitors, taxi drivers and the increasingly prevalent delivery drivers all assuming their parking convenience is sufficient reason to block me out (or in) and that I should wait on their pleasure for my access. The street is already parked out and a new large unit block under construction a few doors up is only going to be make things worse.

Worst case if I was blocked out and my car was damaged in a storm I should be able to simply legally identify and recover damages from the person whose actions directly prevented me from getting my car under cover. Plus recover damages for the delays and all expenses associated being without the use of my vehicle during repairs and costs of pursuit of these.

Or if I opened my tilt garage door from the inside and their car was scratched that should not be my responsibility. They should be paying the BC for the cost of repairs to the garage door.

What can I actually do (owner-resident and Treasurer on EC) so I’m not driven mad by the ongoing delays and frustrations I semi-regularly encounter and will likely encounter more frequently in future? I can appreciate how the concept of some spiteful action against the offending vehicle would appear to be both highly appealing and seem to be the “only” thing that an effected resident could do.

[Author]

Replies