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Having seen one of the couple’s windows in the background of a pic in the news, I’m left wondering why it needs renovation.
I suspect the renovation may already have occurred. The debt goes back to 2019 – surely the owners corp would not be waiting for all the levies to be paid before they started work.
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Tell the strata manager that failure to turn on the invoice approval option will be seen as a breach of contract, which may lead to termination followed by a forensic examination of all previous payments. That should do the trick. The strata manager should do what the owners want, not the other way round.
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Can we nominate another owner to join the committee without waiting for the AGM?
Section 39 (6) of the ACT Unit Titles Act says this:
The executive committee of an owners corporation may appoint a qualified person to fill a casual vacancy on the committee until the next annual general meeting.
A qualified person, for a units plan, means:
a person (other than the manager or associate of the manager) who is—
(a) the owner of a unit in the units plan; or
(b) if the unit is owned by a company or 2 or more part-owners—a representative for the company or the part-owners, as the case requires.The election of the replacement member would be done by a simple show of hands at a committee meeting, with each member having one vote.
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There are four things I would do if I were in this situation (although these solutions may not work for you).
- Identify a strata manager you can trust to do the right thing. We have been associated with our sponsors Strata Choice for years and have no hesitation in recommending them. Mention Flat Chat if and when you contact them
- Apply directly to NCAT for the appointment of that strata manager as an statutory appointment for one year, including a provision that they pursue the missing funds.
- At the same time, take action at Fair Trading against the current strata manager for disciplinary action and the return of the misspent funds. You can do that by going to this Fair Trading page and scrolling down to the Real Estate, Property management and Strata section.
- If the current Strata Manager is a member of Strata Community Association, raise a complaint with them HERE. But remember that the SCA is primarily a strata managers’ professional group, so don’t expect them to send in the cavalry.
None of the above actions require a lawyer (initially, at least). I don’t usually recommend a statutory appointment of a strata manager as that can be tricky for all concerned, but you need a clear-out of the moribund committee members ASAP.
As for inducting the new owner on to the committee, you need to hold a committee meeting to be able to do that, and it has to be to fill a vacancy.
As for the money owed through double spends and unidentified spending, assuming you are on the committee, itemise it and then get your treasurer to send a bill to the strata manager requesting a refund within 30 days, after which the scheme will seek legal remedies.
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As with so many things in strata, the word “reasonable” is not defined. However, Section 232(2) provides something of a guide in that it says if you haven’t received an answer from your owners corp to a request for action within two months, then they have effectively said “no”.
How does this apply in this case? It’s an indication of what might be considered reasonable. In the meantime, you can ask what steps have been taken.
If the strata committee or strata manager haven’t contacted contractors and asked for quotes for the work, then it’s “reasonable” to assume they have done nothing and you might want to consider initiating mediation at Fair Trading with a view to taking further action at NCAT if need be.
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Building management is one of the last largely unregulated areas of strata, not least where individuals with not training or experience can be awarded 10-year contracts based on nothing more than a claim that this is “standard practice”. Expect this to be tidied up in the next review of strata laws.
Meanswhile, you and your committee are ntitled to go to the building manager’s bosses and tell them what you expect from their employees. Also, if they aren’t even doing what was agreed when you hired them, that is a breach of contract and could be grounds for having the contract rescinded.
In short, building management is one of those areas of strata where the squeaky wheels get the most oil. Talk to the parent company and tell them exactly what you want. If they aren’t interested in providing that service, start looking at ways of getting out of the contract.
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The bank would “pay” the OC the required sum on the relevant owner/s behalf;
What a great solution. I’m just curious as to why you used quotes around the word “pay”. Was there some other arrangement that didn’t involve transfer of funds? Not criticising your punctuation, just wondering.
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Send the OC a bill and then take it to the Small Claims Court when they refuse to pay. Ther’e no way you should be paying on your own for OC work.
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A bit like many old balustrades that don’t meet the height code of today. If part of it is damaged, you can’t just fix that section. You gotta replace the whole thing to meet current code.
According to recent reports, you have to make a balustrade safe whether it needs fixing or not. All you need is for someone to know the balustrade isn’t safe.
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Keep an ear open for next week’s podcast where strata lawyer David Sachs explains the ins and outs of debt collection and why you have to be very careful about going for bankruptcy.
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My question is – Is there ever a circumstance where a portion of the roof slab itself, which covers the whole building, has ownership consigned to an individual lot owner.
I recall a block where friends of mine lived and the penthouse owners wanted to take over the roof space for their private use. They paid the OC a lot of money and agreed that they would maintain the roof, as part of the by-law that gave them permission.
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This isn’t about excessive owners corp powers – chance would be a fine thing – it’s about people not putting money aside to pay for inevitable repairs then whining when the bills come in.
Jimmy, I think you have missed a couple of points here.
1. There are Committees within strata that ARE unfairly using their proxies to push their OWN agendas & use their powers to ensure those who vote for them are favoured. Nothing can be done about this & Strata Managers support those who pay their management fees & vote to extend their management.
No argument from me on that, except it’s wrong to say nothing can be done. There are processes available to owners to sack their committees and elect new members, or get involved themselves. It’s not easy but it is possible.
2. Many stratas are run by Committees who do not want Levies increased to cover obvious maintenance. This is often due to the fact many owners in the complex are in over 55 sepp5 strata & cannot afford increased Levies & the committee, who are also owners, do not want Levies increased as they are pensioners. They won’t sell, so Levies do not meet requirements or requirements of maintenance are ignored. Special Levies are never raised.
Again, I agree. But the unavoidable part of this equation is that buildings deteriorate over time and owners corporations have to fix them. What’s missing is education and understanding about their options and the consequences of doing nothing until the situation reaches breaking point.
The elderly couple … I understand their windows were not replaced?
I hadn’t read that and I don’t understand how it could work. It may be in some older buildings that windows aren’t common property. But that’s just another hole in the original story which was heavy on emotion but very patchy on facts. Surely if they didn’t have their windows replaced then they wouldn’t have had any debt.
But why do they have to sell & move from an area they have lived in all their lives because of strata charges?
Was that their only option. Buying somewhere cheaper (smaller and newer) in that area would surely have been possible. Or a reverse mortgage on a million-dollar flat with no mortgage? Finance companies would have been queuing up.
NCAT is expensive & costs may have been issued against them if they tried to be heard through that avenue.
True, because there would have been no grounds for challenging the special levy. The Act is crystal clear – owners have to maintain and repair and everybody pays their share based on their unit entitlements. They have one of the largest flats in the block. On what possible grounds would NCAT say they didn’t have to pay the levy? The lawyers and other advisers who led them down that road then left them with a mountain of debt should be called to account on this.
Reverse mortgages are difficult to get on an apartment & more difficult if not impossible on Sepp5 units.
I am not aware of that and it seems very short-sighted of the financiers if that’s the case. Certainly the reverse mortgage brokers I looked up on the internet had a link for apartments, so someone is presumably accepting them. Sepp 5 did not come in until 1980 so it’s unlikely that this block was built under those terms.
There are nasty Committees out there who are feathering their own nests at the cost of others &, if you are an owner, even the owners corporation can do little if more on the owners corp are proxy friends of the committee.
I know this goes on, for sure – although there’s no evidence of it in this specific case – but there are processes available to apartment owners to remedy it in extreme cases, including having the whole committee sacked and replaced with a strata manager. Self interest and mutual benefit is always a possibility but that’s the price we pay for being given the opportunity to run our homes ourselves. The problem arise most often for those who let others do all the heavy lifting then belatedly take an interest when decisions are made with which they don’t agree.
A million does not go far these days. Even aged care facilities can cost $750k per person. (My experience with parents to keep them in the area close to family). Maybe you can open a forum to gauge just how many are in a similar position, I personally know those in our Sepp5 complex are bullied by a long term committee (11 years).
The forum is open. I suspect your post won’t be the last.
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Of course there may be an exclusive use by law …
The building is more than 50years old. It’s reasonable to assume, in the absence of information to the contrary, that whatever the division of responsibility was when it was built still applies now.
The owner and the strata committee need to look at the original strata plan and determine from it what is common property and what isn’t. It really is as simple as that.
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More “concerned” observers discussing at length things they don’t understand and have zero interest in learning. This isn’t about excessive owners corp powers – chance would be a fine thing – it’s about people not putting money aside to pay for inevitable repairs then whining when the bills come in.
Can you imagine a free-standing house owners setting up a gofundme appeal because the house they had neglected for decades was falling down?
No ill wishes to the couple concerned but some of these self-styled financial experts need to have a look at themselves.
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