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On reflection, the rules for strata committee elections are so specific I don’t think it is possible to hold an election electronically without breaching one aspect of strata law or another.
I will raise this with Fair Trading and get back to you all.
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If units had obtained exclusive use of areas of common property, then there may be a case for changing UEs.
Lady Jane did say the units had been extended. Is it reasonable to assume that was into common property?
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No response to me directly, but agenda for the next meeting has an item stating that a NtC will be issued due to “continual breaches” of the bylaws. Should this go ahead, what can I likely expect and what should be my next steps? Assuming it doesn’t get better, do I just email the Committee before the next meeting?
Having it on the agenda is essential so it can be discussed and voted on for the NTC to be legal. Ask if you can attend the meeting and speak to the motion. If they allow that and someone comes up with some nonsense about issuing a warning first, point out that a Notice to Comply IS a warning. There is no need to issue warnings and they just muddy the waters and delay the resolution of the problem.
Then all you can do is wait and see if the issue is resolved and if it isn’t within the timescale established in the NTC, press the committee and strata managers to seek orders and penalties at NCAT.
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Section 103 of the Act says a committee must have at least three members. You are on your own, which means there is no committee, so you can’t be a committee member, which means you are not the chair.
Oops. Of course you can be chair – of the owners corporation. My mistake. The good news is that you can make decisions and not be held liable for them if they turn out wrong. If anyone objects, invite them to get on board.
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Can anyone suggest another way, such as warning off the pest controller beforehand, or threatening the contract of the property services guy who organized him at the request of the committee. And if anyone has bothered with an pre-emptive legal approach such as an injunction would you recommend that?
The Queensland body corporate equivalent on an injunction is an interim order but that is unlikely to be approved (according to their fact sheet) due to the absence of serious, irreversible harm.
I would start a normal process now with an application to the AG’s office for a ruling that the committee members who approved the expenditure be ordered to refund the Body Corporate the whole amount of the cost of the pest control. You don’t have much chance of achieving it, but it might establish that they are doing the wrong thing.
Or you could go down the conciliation and dispute route and although you can skip conciliation if there is a matter of urgency, again I doubt if this applies.
Threatening the property services person or warning off the pest control person is crossing a line (marked “strata nutcase”) so I wouldn’t go there.
The best advice I can give is to write to the committee and the strata manager and tell them that if they go ahead with this, you will seek orders from Office of the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management that they individually repay the Body Corporate since they are knowingly defrauding the owners for their own benefit. This is not a case of them making an error in good faith since they have been told that they are doing the wrong thing and have chosen to ignore the advice.
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What happens if nobody wants to be on the Committee?
Section 100 of the Owners Corporation Act in Victoria says that a scheme of fewer than 13 “may” (as opposed to “must”) elect a committee.
Section 103 of the Act says a committee must have at least three members. You are on your own, which means there is no committee, so you can’t be a committee member, which means you are not the chair.
The item you quoted seems to delegate all the powers of the non-existent committee to the non-existent chair … except for the powers that have been delegated to the strata manager (assuming you have one).
I think you need to tell all the owners that they have created a dangerous situation in which no-one is steering the ship and you aren’t prepared to do so on your own in case you are held responsible for anything and everything that goes wrong.
And if they aren’t prepared to chip in, then they need to pay someone who will take up the slack.
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There is some confusion as to whether this can be approved by a simple ‘ Special Resolution’ at a GM or whether we need an actual By-Law.
I think what you are looking for is a common property by-law which allows common property (the tiles and waterproofing under them) to be changed and transfers responsibility for the new flooring to the renovator. This common property by-law requires approval by special resolution.
NB: Many schemes give approval for straight-forward renovations subject to the passage of a common property by-law and stack them all up for approval at the next AGM or extraordinary general meeting.
This is done at the renovator’s risk – in case the approval isn’t forthcoming – but there’s little chance of that in most cases.
The worst case scenario for approval without a by-law would be if the renovator sold the property and floor subsequently started leaking. In that case, responsibility for repairing the tiles and waterproof membrane would default to the owners corp, not the new owner.
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I’ve had no replies to about half a dozen emails to Stratabox over last few months, hence my concern about future viability of the product.
They’re still paying their bills but I think they, like everyone else, have been affected by Covid. As far as getting a free service, I wouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth just yet. The cost in running something like Stratabox is at the front end, setting up the platform. Get that right and the running costs are minimal.
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I know I am biased as they are loyal sponsors, but Stratabox doesn’t just have a future, it IS the future.
The proposals for review of strata laws tabled in the NSW parliament yesterday include extensive provisions for the digitising of strata records and owners’ access to them. As a result, platforms like Stratabox can only grow and become more embedded in the strata landscape.
But don’t take the number or responses to this post as an indication of the size and reach of Stratabox. When you drill down through the number of users who are also avid readers of this website, to the people who can be bothered to respond, the figures may be marginal.
Contact Stratabox and ask them about your concerns.
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Just another point that some people don’t realise: if the committee isn’t happy with what the strata manager is doing with their delegated powers, they can take them back just by holding a committee meeting and agreeing to do so.
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There is a well-established medical syndrome associated with aging called hyperacusis whereby people’s hearing is more rather than less sensitive.
An elderly lady who was a friend of ours used to drive her neighbours mad with complaints about the slightest noise. She had that issue.
Perhaps you could suggest that your neighbour consult an audiologist as her hearing is clearly not normal.
Otherwise, if you feel her complaints amount to harassment, you could apply at your local court for an Apprehended Personal Violence Order (APVO) requiring her not to contact you except via a lawyer. Check that link for more details.
Or just go to your chemist and buy some of those foam earplugs than many people used for air travel (remember that?) and drop them in her letterbox. It may inflame the situation but you’ll feel better.
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You likely have appointed a Strata Manager who will do most of this stuff for you – usually they will handle the Secretary, Chairman, and Treasurer roles and issue levy notices, help set the budgets, deal with prickly owner issues and other what-not that you pay them to do.
That is a big assumption. Many larger buildings have chairs, secretaries and treasurers as well as strata managers and many, many smaller blocks don’t have a strata manager at all.
And, yes, some strata schemes do delegate the office-bearers’ duties to the strata manager, but many don’t.
On the question of Secretaries’ specific duties Fair Trading’s Strata Living Guide says this:
• Secretary: arranges meetings by providing advance notice of them, prepares and distributes meeting agendas and minutes, and maintains the strata roll.
The NSW strata Act says:
43 Functions of secretary of owners corporationThe functions of a secretary of an owners corporation include the following—
(a) to prepare and distribute minutes of meetings of the owners corporation and submit a motion for confirmation of the minutes of any meeting of the owners corporation at the next such meeting,
(b) to give on behalf of the owners corporation and the strata committee of the owners corporation notices required to be given under this Act,
(c) to maintain the strata roll,
(d) to enable the inspection of documents on behalf of the owners corporation in accordance with this Act,
(e) to answer communications addressed to the owners corporation,
(f) to convene meetings of the strata committee and (apart from its first annual general meeting) of the owners corporation,
(g) to attend to matters of an administrative or secretarial nature in connection with the exercise of functions by the owners corporation or the strata committee of the owners corporation,
(h) any other functions conferred on the secretary under any other Act or law.
I strongly recommend you and your fellow owners download the Strata Living Guide from the link above and acquaint yourself with your rights and responsibilities, as they are today.If you want to be alerted when anyone replies to your posts or responds to this topic, please register and login, then you will be able to subscribe to the topic. The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers. NB: Longer threads may spill over to additional pages - look for the numbers on the bottom right, under the last post.
Our good friend, property lawyer and accountant Tony Cordato says this:
Step 1 is to look at the definition of ‘project costs’ in the project management agreement.
If the definition follows industry practice, it will state that costs include GST – see this Planning Circular issued by NSW Planning & Infrastructure. The Planning Circular specifically requires GST to be included when calculating the Estimated Cost of Works proposed in a development application.
Step 2 is to calculate the commission. As commission is calculated on ‘project costs’, it will be calculated on tradies fees, cost of materials and other project costs, as invoiced (i.e. including GST).
So the Project supervisor can charge commission on the total bill including GST. On the question of whether or not the project manager charges GST on top of the commission, Tony adds this:
The answer is that the project manager is acting as an agent by charging a commission.
The project manager calculates their commission on the price of the services. If the price includes GST, then the commission is calculated on the price inclusive of GST.
The project manager invoices the commission including GST. [Not with GST added]
The ATO provides an illustration on its website of an agent who sells dive boat trips, for which they receive a commission.
This is the link.
As ScotlandX has also said, you can’t charge GST on GST. The project manager charges commission on the whole amount (which includes GST) and his commission is therefore inclusive of GST. They shouldn’t charge another 10 per cent on top.
NB: I have edited out most of my earlier erroneous comments as they were based on a misundertanding of the term “superintendent” which means caretaker or building manager in some places. A more accurate term in this context would have been “project manager”.
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There should already be provisions in the “take it or leave it” proposal on which you are being asked to vote.
These should include
- limiting noisy work to a minimum number of days (rather than unplanned stop-start drilling etc)
- Limiting noisy work to certain hours (after 8.30 am and before 5 pm, for instance)
- Work on weekdays only – no weekend work at all. As the renovator is a builder, he will have the ability to work whenever he wants and pull tradies in from other jobs for weekend work
- Provision for temporary accommodation for worst affected residents during noisiest period
- Before and after pictures of interior walls
- Provisions for clearing rubble and cleaning common property
- Provisions for tradies’ parking
Now, it may be that these protections have already been included as conditions for approval of the common property by-law that allows the work to be done.
If not, these are perfectly reasonable and standard practice issues that you need to raise before the EGM.
Otherwise, you can raise them as an amendment to the by-law at the EGM – just make sure you have enough numbers (25 per cent of unit entitlements) to vote down the by-law at the EGM if they don’t agree.
Start contacting the owners of neighbouring apartments now, to get their support.
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Why is the superintendent claiming a percentage of the fees? Don’t they get paid for being “superintendent”?
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