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I don’t think any appointed strata manager is going to get into aesthetics. They will either just paint like for like or, if they are feeling generous, ask for a majority opinion, so you are back where you started.
How about getting someone who’s handy with photoshop to take a picture of the block and show it in different combinations of colours? It might change a few minds.
A lot of people have little visual imagination and want things to stay as they are because they can’t picture anything else in their mind’s eye.
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And as my mother used to say, “If IFs and ANDs were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers.”
This is a simple contractual question. The parking space is part of her rent agreement. Take away the parking space, then remove that component of the rent. It doesn’t matter who else is inconvenienced – that is a result of their shared ownership of common property with a consequential benefit to the block in which they will share.
And if the benefit to the residents from the repaired driveway is so great as to make up for the loss of parking, then the landlord will be compensated for the loss of rent by the claimed reduction of wear and tear on tyres far into the future.
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You can’t apply conditions to committee membership as Strata Law sets out the terms and it superseded any by-laws.
However, you can pass a by-law establishing both a Code of Coduct that the owners corporation expects committee members to abide by and a set of standing orders that regulates how committee meetings are run.
If someone becomes disruptive, for instance, during a committee meeting, the chair can ask the committee to cite that person for a breach of the code of conduct.
What are the penalties? It may be very hard (but not impossible) to enforce a Notice To Comply for breaching the code of conduct; easier if it is logical and reasonable.
But if a serial offender is cited several times, it would make it easier to have them kicked off the committee at NCAT or possibly even banned from attending meetings.
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I think this may settle the size argument. From the shiny new NSW government strata website, in a section on pets, it says:
… by-laws banning all pets are not valid and banning animals based on size, type, or quantity, will not be valid in most circumstances.
There you go.
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The tenants will however enjoy the common property improvements with no change to rent, at least until the next review
Well, there has been a change of the conditions of their rental, hasn’t there? They have been paying for a facility that they haven’t been able to enjoy, plus the additional hassle of having to deal with its unavailability, so they aren’t really paying the same.
I’ll bet a week’s car space rental that if the OP took this to Fair Trading, she’d get a rent reduction.
Tenants don’t have any meaningful say in the running of their blocks. That’s one reason why landlords have to stick by the conditions of their lease, or compensate the renters when facilities are removed.
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If it’s a leak from a common property wall into the lot, it’s a CP issue. If it’s a leak from the lot into the CP wall it’s still a CP concern to get the owner to fix it.
Don’t know where this “Lot property until proven otherwise” idea comes from. The Book of Bush Lawyerisms (Strata Edition), perhaps.
The owners corporation, as represented by the strata committee, has a legally enforceable duty to maintain and repair common property. They can work out who to charge for the repairs later. The SC’s priority MUST be to establish the cause of the leak and then take appropriate action.
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There seem to be some unsympathetic responses here, so I’m going to stick up for AGH. Her rent includes a portion for the use of the garage. If the garage is taken out, then that portion of the rent should be refunded so that she can find alternative parking elsewhere.
I’m not convinced by the “everybody’s in the same boat” argument. Even though everyone is inconvenienced more or less equally, at the end of the day the lot owners will also own improved common property. The tenants will be exactly where they started.
You can’t expect tenants to pay for repairs and upgrades of common property, either directly or in kind, e.g. by having to rent parking in a nearby building.
My advice would be to try to find alternative parking near your home – maybe there’s a Facebook page for residents in your area – and ask your landlord to reduce the rent by the equivalent amount. And, yes, call your insurers and check that your insurance hasn’t been invalidated (which it might be if you don’t inform them).
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An owners corporation that is unsuccessful in an action brought against it in NCAT… cannot use the administrative or capital works funds to pay its costs and expenses. It may raise a special levy, but cannot levy a successful owner for a share (s104 SSMA 2015).
That seemes to be true. Let’s look at what Section 104 says:
104 Restrictions on payment of expenses incurred in Tribunal proceedings(1) An owners corporation cannot, in respect of its costs and expenses in proceedings brought by or against it for an order by the Tribunal, levy a contribution on another party who is successful in the proceedings.
(2) An owners corporation that is unsuccessful in proceedings brought by or against it for an order by the Tribunal cannot pay any part of its costs and expenses in the proceedings from its administrative fund or capital works fund, but may make a levy for the purpose.
This is interesting in that it doesn’t define “costs” as being sums awarded by a tribunal to one side or another.
So it seems to be saying, and I hope someone will correct me if I’m wrong, that if an owners corp gets into a stoush with an owner and loses at NCAT, it has to raise a special levy to cover its costs for the case and the resident must be excluded from the special levy.
If that’s the case, it’s an elegant deterrent against strata committees routinely running residents through the tribunal treadmill to impose their will, right reason or none.
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I assume this is facilitated by all other lot owners but me paying their share of the agent’s fee into the strata’s kitty, like a special levy, whilst the agent debits the scheme’s a/c. True?
Cost can be awarded to the exclusion of some owners and must be paid by a special levy. I’m not sure, however, how easy it is to do this retrospectively, after a case has concluded.
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First things first, section 146(3) of the Act could not be clearer on this:
(3) A notice [to comply] must not be given unless a resolution approving the issue of the notice, or the issue of notices for the type of contravention concerned, has first been passed by the owners corporation at a general meeting or by the strata committee of the owners corporation.
What that means for your scheme is that you have to give three days notice of a committee meeting with the Notice To Comply oon the agenda, either by placing a notice on your noticeboard, if you have one, or by sending it to all owners by mail (or just sliding it under their doors) as per Section 263 of the Act.
You then hold a Zoom meeting of the committee and pass the resolution, as per Section 146. If I were on the receiving end of a Notice to Comply that hadn’t been issued by the strata manager or via a committee meeting, I’d challenge it on that basis alone and it would be back to square one for the committee.
Ironically, there is another thread here where a resident is complaining about strata managers having the power to issue NTCs without reference to the committee. I think there’s zero chance of your secretary being given that kind of leeway.
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Joining the Owners Corporation Network (ocn.org.au) will give you access to other schemes and all kind of related information, including who to trust and who to avoid for this issue and subsequent ones too.
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Anyone that can independently advise on this process would be much appreciated … any successful admin stories
I have heard of one case where the existing strata manager was appointed with the support of a majority of the committee (although the serial dissenter had enough votes from other owners to block progress on serious issues).
The strata managers engaged with the remainder of the committee to get their opinions and keep them informed, although they didn’t have to.
Section 237 of the strata management Act allows for a fairly nuanced appointment, which can takeg over of some or all of the duties of the committee or owners corporation and some or all of the responsibilities of some or all of the office-bearers.
The problem is that by the time you get to that stage, it’s usually such a mess that the easiest thing to do is give the strata manager blanket powers and let them get on with it.
But theoretically, you could apply to the tribunal on the basis that things have got so bad that you need intervention but not so bad that you need to cede total control. A sympathetic strata manager would support your application.
How bad does it have to be? Section 237 says, among other things, that “the Tribunal may make an order only if satisfied that the management of a strata scheme … is not functioning or is not functioning satisfactorily,” or “an owners corporation has failed to perform one or more of its duties.”
That’s a pretty broad brush and it doesn’t require the total collapse of the scheme to allow for an appointment.
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