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This what the Planning NSW advisory to local councils says on page 21:
SEPP Seniors Living Housing can be occupied only by seniors (aged 55 year or over) or people with a disability, people who live with them or staff employed to assist in the administration of and provision of services to housing provided under the policy. The Policy requires that consent authorities impose a condition of consent which restricts occupancy to these groups.
The logic is that you have benefitted from a lower purchase price by offering to accommodate seniors or people with disabilities only. It’s swings and roundabouts, but perhaps a more active marketting campaign in publications likely to be read by seniors might assist.
Have a look at this website and Google “NDIS Housing Investment” and see what pops up there. Some agencies are pronising 10-14 per cent Return on Investment but we can’t endorse any of them, if only because we aren’t familier with this area.
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NSW Fair Trading advised that should this matter be taken to a tribunal hearing, it was extremely unlikely that the adjudicator would issue an order saying the fence had to be removed despite it being erected without following correct procedure’
The most remarkable thing about this is that Fair Trading expressed an opinion on the likely outcome of a Tribunal (or anything, really). And it’s strange that no other advice about a fair and equitable outcome has been offered.
What has been casually forgotten here is that other owners’ money has been used to enhance the value of one property, aided and abetted by one committee member. Did the benefitting owner not ask for the fence?
In any case, removing the fence is not the issue, paying for it is. And representations to Fair Trading by the people who colluded with the owner to enhance the value of their property are hardly unbiased.
Under the Dividing Fences Act, if the fence is between the owner’s lot and common property, another property or public land, then the OC is liable for half the cost anyway (which Fair Trading in their generosity should also have explained).
I would be sending the OC a letter explaining that it should bill the benefitting owner for half the cost of the fence.
If they balk at that, there are avenues other owners can pursue via the Tribunal to compell them to do so.
The fence is not at risk. The freebie offered to the owner – or half of it – should be.
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If using section 122, one needs to be careful that the action is lawful, even if there is a bylaw. Trespass is a serious offence.
Funnily enough, I would never envisage Section 122 actually being used.
You’d pass a by-law saying everyone needs to have their smoke alarms tested, cite 122 as legal grounds for being able enter owners apartments if they refused or were unmotivated to comply, and hope no one saw the potential flaw in the logic – that the by-law might not be valid.
Sure, you’d get some bush lawyer in the block who would add this to their anti-vaxxer, anti-masker campaigns, but if 90 per cent of owners went along with it, you’d be happy to let the “rebels” feel they’d won another victory against “the man”.
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This is my personal take. I accept that others may vehemently disagree.
I disagree with some of your response, but not vehemently
… smoke detectors are there to save lives not property. Therefore the risk to property is neither less nor more, without a smoke detector.
The risk is the same regardless of the intended purpose of the smoke detector. Smoke detectors alert people to fires, the sooner that occurs, the less damage will be done to the property.
The question is, should the OC be concerned about the effect on other lots and residents of a fire in one lot. The law implies not, but that doesn’t mean that other owners can’t or shouldn’t.
The Bylaw proposed by JT could be unenforceable.
Perhaps, but I’m looking at Section 122 which says “An owners corporation for a strata scheme may, by its agents, employees or contractors, enter on any part of the parcel of the scheme for the purpose of carrying out (a) work required or authorised to be carried out by the owners corporation in accordance with this Act …”
One of the take outs of the Cooper dog case, is that the OC cannot regulate the use of an owners lot. What one does behind closed doors is owners business.
Well, no, that’s not what the Cooper case said. It was resolved that strata schemes can’t have blanket by-laws that don’t allow for any variation or consideration of the circumstances of specific cases. As you’ll see from this story, a Tribunal subsequently allowed dogs to be banned, rather than all pets.
What you do behind closed doors may be no one else’s business, but only in so far as it doesn’t affect other owners or common property. You still can’t play your stereo at maximum volume all day, or renovate without notice or, in some cases, permission.
But let’s assume you are right and my suggested by-law is “unenforceable”? The only way to establish that is to breach an owner and let them challenge it at NCAT.
In my experience, most people will assume that an OC-dictated inspection of smoke alarms is generally a good thing (if irritating at the time) and go along with it, regardless of whether the by-law is technically valid or not (and I’m not convinced it isn’t).
If we agree that having smoke alarms is a good thing, wouldn’t the potential “encouragement” for the majority of people be worth the risk of losing a case at NCAT.
One final point, this website is replete with stories about strata lawyers and managers approving deterring by-laws that they must know would never stand up in court, but assuming they are unlikely to be challenged. Sometimes the end justifies the means.
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Our strata committee wishes to put a motion to our upcoming AGM that OC annually engage a fire protection service company to service our smoke detectors. However, as a class 1a building, NSW regulations brought in 2017 do not require us to have a fire safety schedule or annual fire safety certification so we seem to have no legislation to rely on for OC to assume responsibility from owners or their property managers. Is there any legislation preventing OC from assuming responsibility?
First of all, for the benefit of our high-rise dwelling readers, a Class 1a building is, according to government websites, “a single dwelling being a detached house, or one of a group of two or more attached dwellings, each being a building, separated by a fire-resisting wall, including a row house, terrace house, town house or villa unit.”
The simple answer to the inspection question is to pass a by-law (requiring 75 per cent of votes cast at a general meeting) that says every lot should allow access once a year for inspection by an accredited fire safety professional.
The by-law should include provisions such as the minimum number of days’ notice to lot owners and allowance for a “call-back fee” payable by owners who don’t allow or arrange access.
Owners who refuse to ever allow or arrange access would be subject to standard Notices To Comply and potential fines from the Tribunal for breaching the by-law.
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Further to what Sir Humphrey wrote, to find committee members individually or collectively culpable for bad decisions, you would have to prove that they were given good advice that they chose to ignore, or that they deliberately decided to avoid decisions that they knew were bad but would save money.
In other words, in the absence of a smoking gun (or smouldering email) you have almost zero chance of proving this, even if it was the case.
Not sure about your reference to barking dogs – was it a literal aside or an allusion to the kind of assumptions you are prepared to make?
By the way, only the new building work in apartment conversions is covered by such warranties as may exist. The remaining original fabric of the building is another matter entirely, and it’s not unusual for problems to appear unexpectedly as the old and new parts of the building settle into each other.
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To answer your last question first, if the worst comes to the worst, yes, you are liable. However, from the strata scheme’s point of view, they’ll be more concerned about the liability of the next owner of your flat, if and when you sell.
Technically, once you have sold, defects in the bathroom would be the responsibility of the owners corp until they can resume control of the common property and (theoretically) reinstate it to its previous condition or persuade the new owner to take responsibility.
In real terms, that means threatening to undo the reno – but that’s never going to fly. What could happen is a lot of hassle, stress and legal bills before a resolution is reached.
Now, you probably could get away with not telling anyone what you’ve done. If the waterproofing and tiles were badly installed, you’d probably know about it by now.
However, if you come to sell, and some savvy purchaser knows what they’re doing, they’ll see in the strata records that you didn’t get approval for the renovation, and could use that to leverage a lower purchase price.
Right now, hypothetically, the strata scheme could demand that you either get a retrospective by-law done or that you reinstate the bathroom to its previous condition. What that really means is that they could cause you a lot of grief in forcing you to take responsibility for the work done and any damage caused by defective work on common property.
To err on the side of caution, I might tell the strata manager that you didn’t realise you needed a by-law, but you are prepared to sign up for a retrospective approval which would include taking responsibility for the common property.
That is all any sensible strata scheme should require and if they get silly about it, you don’t have to sign anything that you aren’t happy about. They can’t force you to take responsibility but they can make life difficult if they get all “bush lawyer” about it.
With that in mind, I would strongly recommend that you approach an experienced strata lawyer (like our sponsors Sachs Gerace Lawyers) or owner advocates (also our sponsors) StrataAnswers, who will not only advise you on the best way forward but, if need be, will act as intermediaries with your strata scheme.
That said, a sensible strata committee will want to avoid the potential for stressful and costly legal battles if you all don’t reach a mutually agreeable resolution.
All they need is for you to take ongoing and transferrable responsibility for the renovation – which is what a pre-reno by-law would have done – and should be happy to resolve the issue with the minimum cost and fuss to all concerned.
The worst thing that could happen is if they insisted on using their lawyers and their by-laws and over-charging you for the privilege, at which point you would be justified in telling them to take a hike.
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From what you tell us, this does not appear to be a strata problem. Since you are renovating your kitchen the costs of this are your responsibility.
Not entirely sure about that. Surely if the strata scheme sent a plumber, for whatever reason, and two turned up and then overcharged, then the strata scheme should wear some of the responsibility.
I’m sorry to say this but tradies employed by strata schemes are notorious for overcharging. My builder got slugged with a double charge for an “emergency after-hours call-out” … at 4.30pm on a Friday afternoon. We were too embarrassed at having caused a leak to complain, but it made me determined to never use that plumber again if I could possibly avoid it.
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Government is introducing laws to prevent charities from misusing funds (eg, giving free catfood to litterbugs to create pest problem).
Is the government (which government??) really bringing in laws to specifically prevent charities from giving cat food to “litterbugs”? Or is this merely an extension of your thinking? That’s to say, some charities are helping feral cats therefore all charities should be curbed by government to make sure cat protection societies are caught in the net?
If so inclined, Flatchatters should feel free to contact the listed “misguided” organisations and individuals to express their support for efforts to push back against attempts to limit what and how charities can operate.
Ask the litterbugs which charity is helping them. Lodge a complaint with Fair Trading in your State/Territory and ACNC. Lodge a police complaint when you are threatened with assault for cleaning the mess. Keep photos and log of dates/times/locations of littering.
Extreme actions tend to engender extreme reactions. Over-zealous and exaggerated campaigning tends to be dismissed as obsessive and possibly even malicious.
Just saying … there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
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I agree with Scottie 100 per cent. This Forum is littered with stories about changes to common property that went through on the nod, only for a new owner to demand that the unofficial additon to common property be repaired at the OC’s expense.
Reassure your neighbour that this is just procedural, that she has the required support, but this needs to be done properly or it can’t be done at all.
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In the meeting I said that the meeting did not meet the due notice requirements of the ACT and that the meeting should be postponed. How can anyone be expected to vote on numbers presented just before the AGM ? Never mind those who did not attend and could not have had sight of the amended figures.
You are right and at the very least the Owners Corp is vulnerable to its budgets and levies being challengesd at NCAT. But the most significant thing about this is that the strata manager dropped the ball. They should be issuing an apology to all owners, while reiterating that the reviewed figures are the real ones and are valid for the next set of levies.
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While most are probably good ideas, it just appears that the decisions and approvals are not being done correctly, and not allowing most owners to have any input into the decisions.
Any decsions to be made by the strata committee have to be listed on the agenda of the next strata committee meeting. Owners have an opportunity to express their opinions there, and even block the decisions from being discussed, if one-third of them object.
Once a decision has been minuted, owners have the opportunity to take action to overturn the decision, especially if they think it’s not valid, via orders at NCAT.
The problem would arise if the proposals weren’t being itemised on the agenda or minuted.
As for the noticeboard, that’s different as a noticeboard, if it exists, may be part of the official notifications process of a small strata scheme, and therefore it should be established in a by-law whether or not it is an official strata committee notice-board or just a community facility. If it is an official notice board, then the owners corp has partial responsibility for notices pinned to it.
As for the locks on letter-boxes and doors, the owners corp has a duty to maintain and repair common property and it could be argued that bringing locks up to date to reflect the present-day threats to security was simply maintaining security.
That would certainly be my view.
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@Footrot – please don’t hijack threads like this.
Hijack seems a bit harsh, but I take your point. Regarding your questions:
1. Who pays for the investigation charge of the plumber?
Not entirely sure about Queensland law but in most places, since the Body Corp is the only body that can insist on entry to explore defects and damage, they would pay initially, then bill the lot owner who had cause the problem or wear the cost themselves if it was a common property defect.
2. Who pays for any damage to the bathroom ceiling below the unit causing the leak?
Again that would be slated back to whoever caused the problem. If it was a fault for which the Body Corporate bore responsibility – eg, a building defect – it would pay. If it was something caused by the lot owner, such as a bodgy bathroom renovation, they would pay.
You might find that your home and contents insurer would pay for the damaged ceiling but then pursue the lot owner for the costs. You might still have to pursue the lot owner for any excess on your insurance policy.
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I agree that it is the tenants who are harmed (or say they are) who should complain. The problem I see is that they cannot point to a document indicating a dog was approved to live in a certain lot and hence if I direct them to the by-laws (and for them to ask the SC/OC to enforce them) it may be tricky to ask the SC to enforce a by-law over a pet whose residency is undocumented;
I’m sorry, but this is utter nonsense. The tenants don’t need to have a document to refer to, to complain about a barking dog. If that’s what you are telling them, then they need to get advice from a more reliable source.
However, reading between the lines of all your other posts on this issue, it seems to me that this is more about a gripe you have with a committee member.
This thread is now closed
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Even with DA for an extended deck, the owner only has owners corp permission (and by-laws) for the renovation for which they sought strata approval.
Your building manager, strata manager and committee need to make it clear to him that in this instance, the strata approval supersedes the council approval. Meanwhile, someone need to tell the council that the renovator doesn’t have permission for the changes they duped the council into approving.
If need be, and if the strata committee or managers don’t move fast on this, consider seeking an interim order at NCAT to prevent the work from proceeding.
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