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Some owners’ can’t appreciate that there is no “them and us” in strata – just us – and they don’t realise that unpaid levies affect everyone, not just the committee.
A shortfall in levies affects everything from building services to repairs and maintenance.
Once unpaid levies reach a certain level, owners should be required to raise a loan against the security of their flat, and their bank or mortgage lender should be legally obliged to provide it.
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The one we have is the standard REINSW agreement,
SCA-NSW, surely?
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There are plenty of strata schemes that don’t “name and shame” levies defaulters, based on the simple logic that they have enough problems without becoming social pariahs too. Usually this is extended to owners who have made an effort to explain why they are behind with their levies and what they plan to do about it.
As for owners who don’t give a stuff about what effect their slow payment has on their neighbours, I would make sure their names were out there and why.
The strata committee can instruct the strata manager on how they want information to be revealed but you can’t stop owners accessing information that they have a right to know.
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Privacy laws don’t apply to strata schemes as they are corporations with turnover of less that $3million a year. Also, the owners have a right to know everything to do with the running of their schemes (despite what strata managers who withhold strata rolls might say).
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I recall friends in the UK who had a noise problem from their upstairs neighbours who basically said “hard cheese – if you aren’t happy, move out.” So they went away for the weekend, having propped stereo speakers up against their bedroom ceiling with the Muppets theme playing on a loop for the 48 hours they were away. Not too loud but loud enough to be heard upstairs and drive the “hard cheese” people insane. “Oh dear, could you hear that?’ they said when they returned to complaints. World War 3 was about to break out but the equivalent of the strata manager stepped in ready to enforce noise complaints from either party. Problem solved.
In this case, just enough irritation to get the person upstairs to agree to putting down carpet at shared cost might work.
One other thought, I wonder if the original DA for the apartment included that the floors would be carpeted. That might be on the title documents for the unit – if so, it would be another avenue to explore.
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Okay, let’s start with my opinion that the strata laws in Victoria have giant holes in them and that Victoria politicians don’t care about apartment owners. Prove me wrong if you disagree.
However part of the Owners Corporation Act says this:
46 Owners corporation to repair and maintain common property
An owners corporation must repair and maintain—
(a) the common property; and
(b) the chattels, fixtures, fittings and services related to the common property or its enjoyment.The question is, is the floor of the apartment above common property? It is in NSW and I suspect it may be in Victoria too. Therefore the OC should be pursuing the owner of the apartment upstairs to cover the floor properly and your beef is with the strata committee for not doing so. Take it to Consumer Affairs with a view to taking the case to VCAT. Now, having said that, my knowledge of how strata law plays out in Victoria is a little sketchy so if anyone in Vic has experience of this, please let us know and correct me if I’m wrong.
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All this vote rigging is irrelevant and only shows how ignorant (0or dismissive) your strata manager is of the law. The committee can’t approve a change to common property, which the installation of this A/C unit clearly is. I would report the strata manager and start proceedings against the committee at Fair Trading before this goes any further.
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I think the first thing I would do is register a complaint against the strata manager. At the same time I would ask for mediation at Fair Trading on a section 232 action against the strata committee for failure to comply with the Act but explain to the other committee members that you are only doing this to establish the law, that it won’t cost the building anything and it will prevent this issue dragging on.
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Rather than getting into the financial weeds on this, and spending more money to work out how much you should be spending, I would just try to establish whether the majority of owners think the proposal is fair and the way to do that it to have a general meeting or even just an online vote.
I have known owners who have demanded a complete bathroom renovation because their water proofing failed, the repairs meant their tiles would no longer match and removing the other tiles meant their vanity, sink and WC had to be replaced.
The owner in this case seems to be acting quite reasonably so I would cut your losses and go with their plan or a variation of it.
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This is what I wrote in the lead Forum piece on the front page – in the right circumstances, this could be a bargain. An apartment in a building that’s had its defects fixed, at a reduced price because of the debts.
Our Flatchatter is seriously considering buying an apartment for about $500k. However, he has discovered that the 70-odd unit development is about $1.5 million in debt and the capital works fund is $30k short.
There seem to be a number of special levies in the pipeline too – presumably to top up the capital works (or sinking) fund.
“Should we run immediately or look into finances deeply first?” they ask.
The first instinct is, of course to run away very far and very fast. But is it the smart thing to do? After all, there are people spending a lot more on units with no idea of what the ultimate costs of defect rectification may be.
Simple fact: all apartment buildings in Australia have defects. This building’s defects have been discovered and, it seems, have been fixed.
So let’s break down the finances. It may be that the vendor has already factored in the debt, knowing that will keep the price down.
So how much cheaper is this apartment than a unit in a similar block in that suburb but which doesn’t have a $1.6million hole in its bank account?
Also there’s the money the purchaser is saving from not having a higher mortgage for the next few years. Let’s call the total difference Factor X.
Now, with one per cent of the unit entitlements (10/1000th), our Flatchatter is up for $16,000 to pay their share of the debt that they would be taking on when they buy the unit.
Weigh that against whatever Factor X is and they could be ahead of the game because what we have is a reduced mortgage and a building that could be defect-free (although you’d want to look into that quite closely).
I wouldn’t run away just yet, not until I’d discovered how thorough the defect checks and rectifications have been. It could be that this was previously a bad block that’s been fixed up and is now being well run and that would add up to a good investment to many people.
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Has anyone else had to deal with this kind of obstinance? Please tell me I’m not alone in this frustration!
Just last year I had the same issue with Netstrata whose boss tried all sorts of BS to try to wriggle out of their legal responsibility to provide the strata roll to our secretary, including sending a quote (to our secretary) from Flat Chat where I told a reader they had no legal right to be given the strata roll for free. The genius Netstrata minion who found this, edited out the part where I said the secretary was entitled to receive all the records. Clowns!
What’s the magic word? Did you find a particular phrase or approach that finally made them budge?
They were using the entirely spurious argument of protecting the owners’ privacy. We said we’d keep the files in a super-secure system – even though any owner could rock up to their offices, pay the $35 fee and expect to see and copy the files. Basically we offered them an off-ramp so they could do the right thing without losing too much face. They eventually quit as strata managers saying I had created a toxic atmosphere … but by then the Four Corners report hit our TV screens. Only their developer mate was sad to see them go.
In your case, the magic word might be “tribunal” – as in, “let’s take this to NCAT and get a definitive ruling.”
Do I need to get the whole committee to descend on them like an angry mob (metaphorically, of course)
Get the committee to agree that if the strata manager doesn’t hand over the documents (or make them available), you will take a complaint to Fair Trading, NCAT and Strata Community Association (NSW) and make a submission to the Fair Trading Task Force currently examining issues in strata management
Is the next step a formal complaint to NSW Fair Trading?
You could give them one more chance to provide the documents or else. But don’t make threats unless you are ready to act on them. That said, while Fair Trading’s response will be a slap on the wrist with a feather, no strata management firm likes to be spotlighted in that way and they will get it done.
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Strata committee members must act honestly, fairly, and in compliance with the SSMA 2015 and the scheme’s by-laws. While the offending committee member has clearly failed to meet those obligations, there is no intention to remove him from the committee.
On that specific topic, by doing nothing, the committee is endorsing bad behaviour. There are no Stratakops – someone has to raise a complaint, even if it’s just to make the other party aware that they can’t just ignore the law.
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The SC is not responsible for educating an owner. If the strata manager has advised the offender to submit a retrospective approval application and he decides that his letter is sufficient, then the committee should proceed to vote, refuse the request, and instruct the strata manager to issue a Notice to Comply. If he still refuses to comply, the matter would move to mediation and then NCAT. This would be the fastest path, and it is difficult to see how NCAT would support his position.
I agree. So is the problem that the committee members are dragging their feet? If so, I reckon a mediation application will get them moving. The committee tells the strata manager what to do, not the other way round, so the committee should issue a notice to comply now and get it over with.
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