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I have edited my previous post because I don’t think this requires a by-law and I’m not even 100 per cent sure if it can’t just be decided at committee (although I suspect not as the law says “given by resolution at a general meeting”).
In any case, the owners corporation at a general meeting can override any decisions of the committee.
So propose your motion and send it to the secretary or strata manager as soon as possible for discussion at the next general meeting. It must be included on the agenda for the next general meeting (which may possibly occur for other reasons before the next AGM).
If you are anxious to move forward on this, collect the signatures of 25 percent of owners and demand a general meeting be held.
Also, by the “hallway” do you mean the lift lobby on your floor (as I’ve assumed) or the foyer of the block?
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So my question is regards the first floor structure and timber sheet flooring is this Common property or lot owners property? Or is the floor considered to be within the lot and hence lot owners property?
My understanding is that in a townhouse, the internal floors are usually lot property as they are not a division between two lots and therefore there is no need to determine responsibility. Anyone else have any thoughts?
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Section 110 of the strata Act says this:
(1) The owner of a lot in a strata scheme may carry out work for the purposes of minor renovations to common property in connection with the owner’s lot with the approval of the owners corporation given by resolution at a general meeting. A special resolution authorising the work is not required.
(2) The approval may be subject to reasonable conditions imposed by the owners corporation and cannot be unreasonably withheld by the owners corporation.
The key words in there are “in connection with the owner’s lot”. Is the lift lobby “in connection with” your apartments? Many owners would say yes.
The other key condition is that approval can’t be unreasonably refused. Again, the definition of unreasonable could keep lawyers busy for months.
If the committee refuses I suggest you propose a motion for the next general meeting which states:
- That one specified lot owner on that floor – and subsequent owners of their flat – will take responsibility for the maintenance of the picture rail, in perpetuity.
- That a simple majority of owners on that floor (3 out of 5) will determine the choice of the pictures.
- That nothing offensive will be hung and will be removed immediately for further consideration if there is any complaint.
- That the owners on that floor will pay any additional costs for insurance (there won’t be any) and the pictures hung there will be there at their owner’s own risk and there will be no recourse to the owners corp if the they are stolen defaced or damaged.
Our block allows the residents of each lift lobby to decide if they want pictures and even console tables. The floors that have them all look different and it elevates the tone of the whole building.
And to answer your committee’s specific objections, the lot owners on that level will choose the pictures and there is no such thing as precedent in these matters – each issue in strata is decided on its merits.
When the issue gets to your next general meeting, make it clear that you will pursue this all the way to NCAT if necessary, so doing nothing is neither the best nor the cheapest option.
On a positive note, let all the other owners know that this establishes a format (not a precedent) through which they could brighten up their lift lobbies.
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This is the topic of my column in the AFR this week if you don’t an AFR subscription, I will be posting it on this website early next week.
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I am interested to know how to manage an expected demand some time the future when the need arises.
I think Sir Humphrey’s post above pretty much spells it out. If you want to know the specifics for your strata scheme, ask the owners what they want – they’re the ones who’ll be paying for it, after all (but it will also enhance the saleability of their properties in the future).
What you want to avoid is having to react to each request as and when it arises. Formulate a policy and then respond accordingly.
Here’s what to ask the owners – do they want:
- No change – no cost?
- Cabled power to their own meters – low cost (if feasible) but slow charging speeds, exclusive access?
- Metered power from common property power sources – low cost, slow charging speeds, exclusive access?
- Three-phase power to their individual parking spots – higher cost, faster speeds, exclusive access?
- Communal high-speed charging stations – moderate costs, faster speeds, shared access?
This is very much a user-pays consideration. Owners will only get what they are prepared to pay for, individually and collectively.
For the latter two options you can install a system that diverts the power to where its most needed, avoiding overload and brown-outs during peak periods and sharing the power fairly between multiple charging points that are in use at the same time.
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I believe Queensland Body Corporate law currently forbids the pre-agreement of contracts APART FROM management rights.
This is a conscious decision by earlier governments to put more money into developers’ pockets and efforts to unwind it have been strongly resisted over the years by all sorts of professionals with their noses in the trough.
The Queensland branch of Strata Community Association (the strata managers’ professional body), for instance, has claimed in the past that it has no official opinion on the matter because, they told me, it has never discussed it (if you can believe that).
Meanwhile its members have reportedly been sighted at seminars set up to explain to caretaker managers how they can convert 10-year residential contracts into 25-year accommodation contracts.
It’s not just them. Some lawyers, real estate agents and, of course, management right traders are very much in favour. This is a stain that runs deep and has more than a whiff of “white shoe” about it.
No simple amendment to strata procedures will untangle this web of legalised corruption.
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An owner can certainly ask the committee to seek more quotes (although these figures are from March so that ship may have sailed). Also, you don’t know what the strata manager has communicated with the committee before they settled on this quote.
All that said and done, the strata manager is required by law to notify owners of any commissions they have received or are likely to receive (usually via the annual report for the AGM). And they must also seek three quotes for insurance or explain in writing why they haven’t.
Here are the relevant sections of the Act:
60 Disclosure of commissions and training services(1) A strata managing agent for a strata scheme must report the following at the annual general meeting of the owners corporation for the scheme—
(a) whether any commissions or training services have been provided to or paid for the agent (other than by the owners corporation) in connection with the exercise by the agent of functions for the scheme during the preceding 12 months and particulars of any such commissions or training services,
(b) any such commissions or training services and the estimated amount or value of any such commissions or training services that the agent believes are likely to be provided to or paid for the agent in the following 12 months.
Maximum penalty—20 penalty units.166 Strata managing agent to obtain insurance quotationsA strata managing agent must provide the owners corporation with not less than 3 quotations from different providers for each type of insurance proposed by the agent to the owners corporation or provide written reasons to the owners corporation if less than 3 quotations are provided.
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I would imagine the thumb-jammer would be preoccupied with the pain. That’s an accident. Someone supervising their dog taking dump on common property is an insult to everyone else in the strata scheme, cleaners included.
As for amendments to the laws, this should already exist in the by-laws, in some form or another.
Both options A and B of the current model pet by-laws contain the provision than pet owners must “take any action that is necessary to clean all areas of the lot or the common property that are soiled by the animal.”
Update your by-laws then enforce them. It’s really as simple as that.
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I don’t disagree that strata titling can and does work in Queensland, to some extent. But I am not convinced that the pre-sale of management rights reduces the cost of apartments, and certainly not at levels that would justify the negative impacts on apartment owners over the breathtakingly extended terms of some contracts.
It is a layer of additional control that serves no other purpose than to extract more money from apartment owners. Other states have building managers and caretaker managers who survive on terms of less than 10 years and keep their contracts by the simple expedient of doing a good job. The reverse of that is that when the provision of service is contingent on profitability, profits take precedence over quality of service.
I recall the media release sent out by a prominent management rights trader a few years ago telling NSW developers that the were naive for not mining the potentially lucrative area of pre-sale of management rights. It speaks to the blinkered attitudes of these people that they didn’t realise that this was illegal everywhere in Australia except Queensland.
Yes, Queensland is unique – but not always in good ways.
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On second thoughts, having sifted through pictures of all kinds of electric scooters, I wonder if we can get Marbles (the OP) to tell us what kind of scooter he’s talking about.
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The owners corp has an obligation to ensure apartments are accessible for fire inspections and these are conducted annually at the very least.
I don’t know about any standard notice but if it was inadequate, you could certainly challenge the charge at Fair Trading and NCAT.
To answer question 2, this usually comes in the form of them having to arrange a second or subsequent visit by fire safety inspectors, which comes at a cost, which they are passing on to owners who didn’t make their apartments accessible.
With that in mind, and given your situation, you might want to consider making arrangements for access to the apartment at times when you aren’t able to get there, such as by leaving a key with another resident, or the building manager (if you have one).
If there’s no one there that you trust, you could even send a spare key to the fire safety people. The thing is, this is going to happen every year, possibly more often than that, and you need to have a plan B for when you can’t be there.
How about asking if you can put a key safe in the electrical fuse cupboard or somewhere else with limited access?
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It sounds like you are paying for a renovation, but the question is, should you be. The owners corp has to fix the leaking floor, this much we know. Now, if fixing the floor means damaging the wall tiles, then they have to fix them too. And if fixing the wall tiles means replacing the fittings … you get my drift.
The fact that the new tiles and fittings are being excluded from the costs to the owners corp makes this feel just about right to me. As for the labour costs? Hard to say most of them wouldn’t have fallen to the OC anyway.
Should you wait until the waterproofing fails so you get a big contribution towards your bathroom reno? That’s up to individuals and how long they are prepare to live in a flat with a 40-year-old bathroom
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I’d just point out that some local councils in Queensland (and possibly elsewhere) won’t approve new apartment blocks unless they have charging ponts for mobility scooters.
I also have to confess that I thought this question was about one of those trendy electric scooters we see around the city (or used to, before lockdown). I now realise I am simply too hip for my own good.
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“Trip hazard” may be a term that comes from a fire safety inspection. In such cases, it’s not so much that the pots present a risk of people literally tripping over them, but that they could be intruding into the safe walking space.
If it’s a narrow laneway, the strata committee may have a point as dimensions are calulated on the space required for people to navigate in an emergency.
If it’s a wide area, then less so.
There are some committees that will err excessively on the side of caution in these matters.
Others will just take their fire safety reposrts as gospel, expecially if it might affect the building insurance.
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Re the Unit Entitlements, I read somewhere that size didn’t matter (so to speak); it was the value that did. So thanks for clearing that up.
Unit entitlements are roughly related to the value of the unit when first built, and that in turn is related to the size and location. So, for instance you could potentially have a small unit with a great outlook with the same UEs as a large unit with no outlook.
However, as the building matures and improvements are made to some units but not to others, the relationship between the value at sale of the apartments and their UEs diverges even further.
Throw into the mix that fact that some developers (who set the initial UEs) might scale them down on more expansive flats to make them easier to sell, then there is no direct correlation between the value of the units and their UEs.
On the question of raising the issue at your AGM, all you have to do is convince the majority of owners that they are being ripped off to benefit a minority and they can tell the chair what to do, rather than the other way round. And unless the chair has actually costed the process, their argument will carry little weight, especially if they are benefitting from this imbalance.
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