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You can seek it and I can’t see why you wouldn’t get it. Contacting the insurance company directly may get surprising results.
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One other thing, in the ACT, under the terms of the Residential Tenancies Act (Section 71AE) , the tenant has to apply to the landlord for permission to have an animal in the rented property if the strata scheme’s by-laws require that. But the landlord may not deny permission unless they have first gone to the tribunal (ACAT) to seek its blessing.
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The agent (relatively new) does engage with owners outside of the SC.
AND
… he will not reply to an email until he receives chapter and verse from the SC.
These statement seem to be contradictory. Also your quoting and requoting and referencing yourself in the third person is confusing. Keep it simple, please, but let us know how you get on with your various approaches to the strata committee.
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There’s a very simple truism about dogs barking when their owners aren’t there. The owners can’t hear them and it’s not unusual for owners to choose not to believe that their dogs are barking.
So record the noise, keep a diary of when it occurred and get another owner to corroborate.
And check your by-laws (rules) to see what they say about permission for pets.
Section 32 of theACT Unit Titles (Management) Act says this:
(1) A unit owner or occupier of a unit may keep an animal, or allow an animal to be kept, within the unit or the common property—
(a) if the animal is an assistance animal; or
(b) if the animal is not an assistance animal, only if—
(i) if the rules of the owners corporation include a pet friendly rule—the animal is kept in accordance with the pet friendly rule; or
(ii) the owners corporation consents to the animal being kept.
If the dog owner refuses to see reason and can’t or won’t do anything about the barking, you can apply to the Owners Corporation under Section 111 of the Act for them to send a breach notice (Section 109) which, if ignored, could lead to a fine of up to $550.
If the OC won’t get involved, have a look at this fact sheet about how barking dogs are dealt with in the ACT which also has complaint forms attached.
As for the size of the dogs, that’s barely relevant (unless they are scaring people, in lifts for instance). The biggest dogs like Great Danes can be perfect apartment pets.
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Our Chairman and the Committee (most) ignore complaints. In response to any complaint from an owner the response is “issue legal proceedings in VCAT if you think you have a case”. The OC Committee members are insured, the owner risks $120k in costs at VCAT.
According to this Fact Sheet there are is no cost that would even approach $120k. How do you reach that figure?
Don’t waste your money on legal letters from high-priced lawyers. Follow the links on the fact sheet to get advice specific to strata schemes
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You haven’t said when (or whether!) your property was brought under strata titles legislation.
Olivia refers to “the strata”. But you’re right, unless bylaws have been adopted to take windows into common property, then they are her lot responsibility.
And that would mean the owners corporation probably shouldn’t have paid for the inadequate repairs the first time around.
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The agent (relatively new) does engage with owners outside of the SC. Compared to many agents I ahve dealt with, this one is good.
Like all other agents I have dealt with, he will not reply to an email until he receives chapter and verse from the SC, in this case the Sec/Tsr.
These statements above appear to be completely contradictory.
I have no idea of the current policy [on payment approvals] which as I recall was never articulated by anyone at an AGM. So what you’re saying is that to ensure compliance with transparency, I should list a motion at the AGM accordingly?
Or you could just ask the committee, or propose a motion to the next committee meeting that someone explains how payments are approved.
Can I ask the SC if any member (there are two) has direct or indirect links or associations with the cleaning company, its owner(s) or staff? A link was never disclosed to the OC.
You can ask and, if there are, it should have been disclosed under Part 18 of Schedule 2, of the Act and recorded in a book kept specifically for that purpose. Failure to disclose can lead to fines of up to $1100 but doesn’t render any decisions invalid.
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I find it hard to believe that the agent would not have represented the strata committee at a mediatin without the knowledge and tacit agreement of the committee or its office-bearers.
Or to put it another way, if the committee hadn’t wanted the agent to participate in the mediation, they would have told them not to do it.
The other concerns, such as not reporting these representations and claiming that they decided to represent the committee are protocol issues that I suspect stem from the agent not having much respect for the process, or the issues raised at the mediation.
That doesn’t excuse anything, but it’s not really that big a deal.
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Can the agent (who routinely passes emails to the SC) and SC ignore my questions?
The agent doesn’t work for you, they work for the owners corporation (of which you are part). It may be that there are instructions to or a tacit agreement with the Strata Manager not to engage directly with owners. If that’s the case and you want it changed, propose it at as a motion at your next AGM and see if it flies as Owners Corp policy. By the way, one of the reasons strata managers are discourged from dealing directly with individual owners (except, perhaps, in emergencies) is that each contact can cost money in Schedule B charges.
Can invoices be paid without having been approved by anyone?
Again this depends on the agreed relationship with the strata manager. Some schemes demand that a Strata Committee office-bearer co-signs all invoices. Some leave it up entirely to the strata manager. Again, this is a policy that can be changed by a simple motion to the next AGM.
Can invoices be so meaningless as to raise the possibility that the OC is being fleeced?
That can happen in any walk of life, can’t it? Again, it’s up to the strata committee and owners corp to determine the level of diligence required. If you want to change it, propose a standard format for all invoices that service providers have to use, and have that passed at a general meeting.
If you suspect serious fraud, that’s another matter entirely and should be pursued through Fair Trading and NCAT in the first instance, and the police therafter.
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Thanks so much for your precise advice Jimmy. The next day they responded.
And what was the response? Do tell!
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A few points.
- Relocating rooms and installing a lift will require council approval. Do not under any circumstances accept a document from the builder that says this is a “complying development”.
- Council will need the strata committee’s approval before they issue the DA.
- It’s their renovation so they have to pay for the experts.
- It’s your (collective) building so you get to choose the experts.
- If they refuse to comply with these perfectly reasonable demands, you can refuse to pass the necessary by-laws and object to the renovation at council. Either way, it stands a lot less chance of being approved.
- Defer the agreement – do not under any circumstances allow this to be approved at your imminent meeting. That would just be insane.
Now that that’s out of the way, you should try to see the renovation as a major upgrade to the whole scheme. If it’s done properly and there are no noise issues from the lift and the relocated rooms (for instance) it’s an enhancement and should be encouraged.
But you need to get things right at the start so that the owners don’t do a “quick and dirty” upgrade, then sell up and leave you and the new owners to deal with the problems they have left behind.
You’re right that they haven’t left you enough time to decide and you should simply defer agreement to another general meeting to be set at a later date when you’ve had a chance to examine the proposals.
And you could contact our sponsors Strata Answers, who will give you sound advice on how best to proceed.
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Did you ever get a lawyer? You can take the scheme to NCAT and force them to fix the problem. And your neighbours could probably charge the property manager over her negligence too.
Time you got this house in order, with proper meetings, minutes, accounts and elections, methinks.
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Sadly, no. The relevant section of the law was repealed last year.
Abandoned cars can be removed under the terms of the Abandoned Goods Act, but you have to be sure they have been abandoned, and not just wrongly parked by a selfish idiot.
However, if this is a regular problem, you might like to look at this story for some ideas.
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You have a right to see any correspondence between the strata committee, and the strata manager acting on their behalf, and anyone else. You may, however have to pay a nominal fee of around $30 and attend the strata manager’s office to do so.
The only exception to your right to see correspondence might be if it was between them and their lawyer in a dispute with you. In this case, they may say it’s “commercial in confidence” but that is utter BS. You are contributing to the bills via your levies so you are entitled to see them.
I presume you think there is something fishy about their relationship with the firm they have contracted to do the work. Their secrecy does nothing to diminish that.
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The easiest way to discover this is to contact the strata insurer directly. They may cover the full amount or the excess on your home and contents insurance.
Or not …
But you can contact them directly to find out, as I said.
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