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… you could define visitor as something like this: “Visitor” means an invitee, caller, tradesperson and/or contractor and/or an employee of an Owner or Occupier of a Lot.
I don’t think that’s enough. What about the romantic partner of a resident who stays over for a weekend or even a week or two? They would be “invitees”. As I’ve said already, one-size-fits-all won’t work in this regard. You have to look at the legitimate usage and frequent abuses of visitor parking in your scheme and draw up a by-law accordingly.
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BTW the Strata Committee refused mediation re the issue some months ago so it could go straight to NCAT. I don’t like my chances there either.
I don’t see why. If the committee member has supplied his employees with parking permission and remote keys for the gates, it’s pretty clear that he is using common property for his own commercial benefit without properly compensating the owners corp for its use.
This is not a simple case of someone allowing an outsider to use common property as a matter of convenience. This committee member is using their position to exert undue influence on the committee for financial gain.
And don’t forget to call the council. This must surely be a breach of the block’s DA.
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The hierarchy of power in a strata scheme is that the owners corporation (in general meeting) tells the strata committee what to do and the strata committee tells the strata manager.
Of course, the SC can choose not to implement instructions from the owners corp – there are no StrataKops who will come and take them to Common Property Prison – but you can take them to NCAT under Section 232 (2) of the strata Act:
Failure to exercise a function
For the purposes of this section, an owners corporation, strata committee or building management committee is taken not to have exercised a function if–
(a) it decides not to exercise the function, or
(b) application is made to it to exercise the function and it fails for 2 months after the making of the application to exercise the function in accordance with the application or to inform the applicant that it has decided not to exercise the function in accordance with the application.
So write to the committee and tell them that they need to follow the instruction of the Owners Corp and if they haven’t done so within two months, you will seek appropriate remedies under section 232(2) of the Act.
And you might point out that if they fight it and lose, they and other owners (but not you) will have to pay the expenses incurred in doing so. You might get other owners to join you in this action so they don’t have to pay either.
They can then explain to the other owners why they have cost them this money as well as ignoring their instructions. That should get things moving.
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This is a question I have been banging on about for years now. Any building that has visitor parking should have a by-law that defines what a visitor is for the purposes of the use of said parking. The by-law you would write would be based on the best use for the residents of your block – i.e. one-size-fits-all will not work here.
If a block has a number of elderly people in it, you might want to make the hours in which a visitor’s vehicle is parked quite generous. If you have a lot of younger people who invite their friends to come and stay for the weekend, taking up all the parking, then you would make it more restrictive.
However, in this case you clearly have Buckley’s chance of getting a reasonable by-law passed.
But it’s as plain as day that this owner is getting a commercial benefit from letting his workers use visitor parking free of charge (and at a notional cost to the other owners).
I would be off to Fair Trading seeking mediation as a precursor to having the decision overturned through orders from NCAT.
I would also tell the local council that the terms of their Development Approval have been breached as what they agreed would be visitor parking is now used for commercial purposes.
And I would put forward a reasonable definition of what constitutes visitor parking as a by-law for approval at your next AGM. I’d point out that if it’s rejected out of hand, they can expect another trip to the Tribunal.
This owner is having a lend and the fact that he has enough cronies on the committee to support his parking grab doesn’t make it right, morally or legally. He’s a parking thief – plain and simple – and any disruption to the sense of community in the scheme is down to him, not you.
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I can’t understand how they can limit the numbers, as you can have up to 9 members https://www.nsw.gov.au/housing-and-construction/strata/roles
The owners corp sets the numbers before each election, to a maximum of nine.
The regulations set out how elections must be conducted in NSW strata and the first thing you do is to declare the names of people nominated prior to the meeting, then call for nominations from people at the meeting.
Then there is a vote taken to set the number of members which may be a maximum of nine and a minimum of three for a large scheme (over 100 lots) and one for a small scheme.
If there are more nominations that places, you hold an election and you do that by handing out blank sheets of paper on which owners write the names of their preferred candidates. Pre-printed voting papers are invalid.
You are right on the number of proxies, but then it depends on how many owners participate in the meeting either in person or by proxy. In a scheme of only 20 lots, five members of the committee could easily dominate with a combination of their own votes, plus one proxy vote each, then count unit entitlements as well as the fact that a 50 percent turn-out is almost unheard of.
There are ways to combat this but they involve scrutinising procedures and opposing owners’ right to vote and motivating other owners to support you. In other words, it’s possible but it’s not easy.
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limiting the tenure of individuals as you propose or by any other means to my knowledge is not possible;
Owners corporations can’t limit the tenure of committee members. The right to be elected to the committee is granted to all owners via the Act and resolutions of the owners corp can’t overturn the law.
What you can do is to check that they are entitled to stand by looking at the Act and regulations closely and seeing who might be invalid – and having alternative candidates ready to go. In my experience, these committees get very slack once they’ve been in power for a while and forget to line up their nominees and make sure they are all “financial” or validly nominated.
Just don’t telegraph your plans too much and make sure the elections are carried out according to the Act – blank sheets of paper and all that.
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This post has been edited slightly because of confusion over the Act and Regulations and the initials used to identify them.
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There is no need for any buyer to pay for such a report unless they are under contract and need an updated financial position prior to settlement.
We have a similar system in NSW. But a proper strata report is something else entirely and can be a deep dive into the minutes, agendas and decisions of the committee, as well as a look at correspondence and finances.
There is at least one thread on this site where a purchaser was not told that, even though the block had pet-friendly by-laws, they were actively considering banning pets. And, in fact they did so between the purchaser making an offer and finalising the purchase.
A proper strata report would have revealed that and save a lot of stress and distress (all of which is redundant now, of course).
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Lintel. Lentils are beans.
Pulses, to be accurate.
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I’m not a lawyer either, but I seem to recall that tenants have to agree to abide by by-laws as a condition of their leases. I also know that owners are responsible for controlling the behaviour of their tenants.
So if the tenants breaches the by-laws and the owner does nothing to stop it, like cancelling the lease, go after the owner. It’s not as simple as one breach and you’re out, but persistent offenders put themselves and their landlords on the wrong side of strata law.
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I don’t think either strata insurance or home and contents insurance will cover defects or the consequences of their rectification unless there was accidental damage. Could be wrong, though.
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I’m just wondering about the structural integrity of lentils. But seriously, Austman is right. Get a by-law drawn up whereby you take responsibility for any maintenance and repairs required as a result of your renovations.
And, on a wider point, anyone who accepts a builder’s opinion on the strata law requirements for work is asking for trouble.
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NCAT will only really be interested if they scheme is functioning in a way that benefits some owners financially to the detriment of others, and the scheme is not functioning as intended by the Act.
To put it another way, if the bullying takes the form of your opinions never being heard but the decision making is relatively sound and the finances and fabric of the building aren’t suffering unduly, they probably won’t do anything.
On the other hand, I hear that even when a building has become dysfunctional due to the behaviour of specific members of the committee – e.g. finances are in trouble, common property is being taken over by individuals without due compensation, maintenance is being neglected to save on levies – NCAT is more likely to appoint a statutory strata manager to take over the running of the building than they are to remove specific members of the committee.
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If you are a tenant, your landlord or rental agent is legally obliged to provide a copy of up-to-date by-laws.
If you are a landlord or owner-resident the by-laws should have been attached to your title deeds or documents of sale. If you no longer have them your solicitor or conveyancer may have hem. Also your strata manager should have them too.
Some schemes also include the consolidated by-laws in their AGM agendas.
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What happens now? I’ve no idea but the tenant is enjoying the garden space!
Have a look at this court case over a purchaser being misled over problems in an apartment block. It didn’t help the vendor’s case that they had claimed fenced-off common property as their own. You’ll be fine as long as you don’t get into trouble over something else.
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