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Owners corporations throughout NSW, and beyond, are very lucky to have folk like you doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Flat Chat forces policy makers to listen to our concerns.The concerns of those of us trying to eak out our existence in close quarters in a strata community. It’s obvious that most of the decision makers don’t live in an apartment, because the obvious intrusion short-let stays have on the peaceful enjoyment of a lot would not be considered OK if they did.Is there a lobby group representing owners corporations? Or are the only voices from SCA and Strata Manager like associations? Obviously their concerns are quite different to ours. If there isn’t a lobby group for owners corporations, I wonder if it was time one was formed. I’d be interested to get involved.
At our recent EGM to elect a new committee, as no proxies were allowed, Powers of Attorney were provided by several people.
So the smarties are one step ahead.
So what is the Austlii court reference for the district court matter?? Please provide so that we can all read it!!!!
@JimmyT said:
The laws about visitor parking haven’t changed. If you have by-laws that prevent it, they will stay the same. If your building has problems with rogue parking, then the new laws don’t come in until later this year and even then, it’s unlikely to have an immediate effect, if any.In your situation, this ad hoc arrangement will be fine until someone decides it isn’t. There are no StrataKops patrolling buildings looking for by-law breaches. If nobody in your building objects, then you will be fine. If and when someone does, you need to think about renting a space from another resident – or parking your car in the street!
Interestingly, one owner did object quite a lot. He must be a night owl or early riser to discover the heinous crime. He delighted in leaving nasty notes on the windscreen, in our letter box, under our door, knocked on our door to shout at us and hurl abuse about our flagrant abuse of the rules, whenever we passed in the corridor. He also objected to me parking a car and motorcycle in my allocated single car space, despite there being ample room to do so and both vehicles being well within the lines.
The thing is, the visitor spaces are very rarely used. I mean they are empty 99.9% of the time, so its not like there is a lot of inconvenience and as I mentioned, my partner only parks there as a last resort and the vehicle is moved early the next day.
I did manage to have a “conversation” with this person asking why he was so pedantic about keeping all the visitor spaces empty all the time? His response was that “its against the rules and the rules have to be followed all the time. No exceptions. Ever!”
Anyway, I had a chat with some of the other residents. It turns out he was trying to rally support for his cause. He wanted us evicted. Unbeknown to me, the other residents were well aware of my partner being a nurse and her occasional use of the visitor parking and they are all fine with it. Infact they were getting a little weary of the constant badgering by Mr Rule Book.
Sometimes sense and reason and cooperation prevail.
Has there been any clarification of this?
Have new rules been introduced?
For tenants that may use visitor parking for short periods, discussions could be had with the body corporate for reasonable to prevail.
For example, my partner is a nurse working a 24 hour roster. Often she arrives home with no parking available in the street, within a kilometer of our building. She uses the visitor parking to save her walking a long distance from car to home, late at night. One of us then moves the car to the street the next morning when all the business hours people have gone to work.
Surely this is reasonable and acceptable?
As for commuters using visitor spaces as their personal free all day spaces, fines may be the only answer, but care should be taken to ensure the offending vehicles are correctly targeted.
I read, and laughed, at your article in Domain this morning re: the new, new, new swimming pool regulations and the proliferation of certificates.
You may be interested in my current situation related to the new regulations.
We have lived in the same house for 28 years and we have a pool in front of our house (we are on a battle axe block). Up until the new regulations were mooted some 2 or 3 years ago our pool complied with the then regulations and involved a section of our house comprising part of the pool exclusion zone.
To comply, doors in that section of the house had to have handles 1500mm from the ground, they had to be self closing and windows could not open more than 100ml. We did all of this and with other measures we had to take we complied with the then regulations.
Last week I had a private certifier come in and review the situation. He was a nice bloke and he had a bit of imagination (and this is a particularly difficult and fairly unique situation) but even so we are looking at a complex and expensive (at least $20K) solution which would comply without totally destroying the beauty and the ambience of our garden setting.
I pushed him on the possibility of continuing to use the previously compliant section of our house as part of the exclusion zone and he ask how long how pool had been there.
At least 30 years, possibly quite a lot longer as we are pretty certain it is pre 1980. He said that due to length of time the pool had been there and our compliance with the previous regulations there may be a way but he would need to check with the POOL & Spa Association. I am awaiting his reply.
Since then, a real estate agent friend brought to my attention the recent sale of a house in Lindfield which had a compliance certificate attached to the contract. The house was used as part of the exclusion zone for the pool. The certificate was issued by Kuringai Council. My friend did some digging. Kuringai Council have 3 pool compliance officers ; one of these officers issued the compliance certificate yet when my friend spoke to one of the other officers he stated that he would never have issued it!
It would appear that these new regulations are more complex than is understood and open to interpretation.
My question to you is do you know anybody who knows the new regulations inside out and back to front ?
Apart from Sir Humphrey*, of course. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
*In the print version of Flat Chat column in Domain, we “quoted” the eloquent Sir Humphrey of Yes, Minister rather that potty-mouthed Malcolm from The Thick of It.
It seems there are moves afoot to allow local council parking cops onto residential strata property to fine people for “illegal” parking.
I would encourage people to really think about this before we go down that road.
First it creates an adversarial rather than co-operative approach to a growing problem.
As population densities increase and the problem grows, issuing fines and creating bans will only increase the angst and certainly won’t do anything to solve the problem.
We are going to have more cars. Consequently, we will need places to put them.
Surely we can come up with something better than handing out pay up notices?
The following was sent via email by a reader who was unable to negotiate the registration process of the website. I don’t agree with much of it but in the interests of fair play … – JT.
I have read with interest your expose of the insurance vagaries arising from the very common event of an escape of water in a Strata building causing damage to property. There are certain aspects of this matter which need to be exposed, emphasised and clarified in order that the outcome may be clarified for the assistance of all concerned.
In the second paragraph there is reference to a “tenant’s dishwasher” which means a dishwasher belonging to the tenant (of the upper flat). In the third paragraph there is a reference to the “owner of the dishwasher” which is obviously referring to the owner of the upper flat from which the water escaped. These two references are in direct contradiction of each other respectively so that one of the statements is in error. It would be possible for a tenant to be the owner of the dishwasher but for practical purposes it may be assumed that the dishwasher was owned by the owner of the upper flat.
The damaged property is not described other than to say that it “will cost about $4,000 to rectify”. The absence of a proper description is a serious omission by the informant which requires clarification. It could be speculated that carpeting belonging to the owner of the lower flat was damaged but reading the information supplied as a whole it is more likely that the primary damage was to (kitchen) cupboards in the lower flat. If the tenant suffered damage to his/her property then this would likely be to TVs and other electrical appliances which damage is not usually described as a lump sum “to rectify”.
It is apparent that the informant is under the impression that the owner of the dishwasher has a strict liability for any damage caused by water escaping from the dishwasher. The informant is seriously misguided in this regarded and should be disabused of this error. The crucial question is to ascertain whether the damage was caused by negligence (which is difficult to prove) and, if so, which party was negligent. The absence of any reference to this, especially as it is adequately covered on the Forum, is a serious omission.
Insurance. There is not any legal obligation for tenants or landlords to insure and anecdotal evidence suggests that most of them do not. The Strata legislation stipulates that that part of the building which is inside a Lot forms part of the building for insurance purposes. Furthermore, the Strata legislation requires that each such building be insured, in breach of which there are penalties, so that it may reasonably be assumed that the building, including that part of the building inside the Lot, was insured.
So, if clarification with the informant confirms that the subject damage was to the building and/or its fixtures, a claim should be lodged immediately on the building insurer. Problem solved. Having paid the claim the insurer will explore the prospects of recovery but this is unlikely to be successful. If the damage was to carpet or curtains or the like then each will be saddled with his/her own costs probably without prospect of recovery from any other source.
The article commences with an implication that only two parties were involved so it might be interesting to consider all the potential parties:
Body Corporate
Owner of the upper flat
Tenant of the upper flat
Owner of the lower flat
Tenant of the lower flat
Repairer of the dishwasher prior to water escape?
Installer of the dishwasher
Retailer from whom the dishwasher was purchased
Manufacturer/importer of the dishwasher
Insurer of each of the foregoing
Possibly, others
This arrived this morning from an unhappy reader:
From your article, I can see how naïve you are . If you think that “proxy farming” is a mechanism to be elected or the building will collapse without you, then you have never been in the thankless role of Chairmen of a Body Corporate committee.
Perhaps you haven’t lived in a strata title , or you have but you haven’t paid attention to how much work is involved, the daily phone calls , load of emails, organising workers to collect keys so emergency work can be done in their apartment, liaison with the managing agent 24/7 and all this you do out of the goodness of your heart. Mostly tenants knock on your door at any time of the day and night and treat you like a concierge – or their parent!
Attending a tribunal hearing if or when necessary is another joy and I am sure you would ask why the managing agent doesn’t get involved. I have yet to see one managing agent who is capable of executing his duty efficiently , the less work for them is the better .
Putting up with renters who break every by-law in the book, parking illegally with their invitees partying , I can go on and on,
Those by-laws are written by bureaucrats who never in their life have lived in a strata title dwelling.
I have been a chairman for the past 25 years and I could write a book about what is really going on. I sold 3 years ago and now live in a house and there is no way I will live in a unit ever again.
Grant Arbuthnot, principal solicitor with the Tenants Union, NSW writes:
We are just about to publish a factsheet on sale of premises and tenancy. It includes material on photography that applies generally in tenancy.
The relevant term of the tenancy agreement is re peace, comfort and privacy
Our view is that internal photography by the landlord or agent is a breach of
the tenants privacy unless the images do not show the tenants personal physical arrangements of living
Photography of particular aspects of the premises for insurance or repair purposes do not need the tenants personal goods
Agents do not need general photographs of the premises to report to the landlord from inspections
Tenants concerns with photography go further than privacy. When photographs are used to advertise premises they are good intelligence for burglars
We are also aware of a matter where a tenants employment was sensitive and dangerous. Publishing interior photographs of the premises risked the safety of the tenant, as the photographs included the tenants family photographs.
The Victorian Law Reform Commission investigated the issue of photography in rented premises and published their report last year
https://www.lawreform.vic.gov.au/all-projects/ptp
The submissions, including ours, are available on the commissions website. You were right to mention retaliatory termination. ‘No grounds’ termination of tenancies undermines all the purported rights of tenants in NSW.
Just to provide some balance…I’m a boring old fart and the other boring old farts in the Newcastle complex where I own an apartment, gave enormous amounts of their time and money to win an insurance claim against shoddy construction practises.
It took up ten years of the old farts’ time but they stuck at it and won $3 million in damages/repairs for all the owners, young and old and….they’ve just spent the last eighteen months organising and supervising the repairs.
I suggest a little bit more respect for older people would help you see and write with greater wisdom and emotional maturity.
SD – Newcastle
I must bring to your attention some facts because of the sweeping generalisations in your article today. I am a retiree living in a strata building in a densely populated area close to the CBD and it has been my experience that the “boring old farts” and proxy farmers are inevitably professional working men aged between 35 and 55 who don’t like anything done without their consultation and permission!
Like many other retirees, I am content to sit back now and let others do the work, but I always attend EGMs and AGMs for my strata plan because I want to have a say in what is done to our building. Younger people who are still working inevitably want to “add value to our property” by unnecessary painting, adding bits and pieces, having the “latest” lighting, etc. etc. so they can sell and move on, while the retirees are mostly staying put.
By the way, I’ve been told I am never boring because I’m just busy living my life and doing all the things I never had time to do when I was working!!
I have a similar situation to Scoop Barnacles. All roles of the EC have been delegated to the strata manager. Prior to the last AGM the EC gave the manager instructions in writing to amend one of the standard motions. He wrote and distributed the agenda without the amendment and then advised it could be changed during the meeting which it was. However he wrote and distributed the minutes which didn’t reflect the new motion and the fact that the meeting carried it and so we now need an EGM to correct them.
With a review of the management agreement underway I would prefer the OC agree to change managers but fear that it would be very difficult to get the OC to agree. Would it be prudent, if we go ahead with the new management agreement, not to delegate EC roles to the manager? And how much extra work would that create for the EC?