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Any proposal like this requires a special resolution, so bear in mind that if the proposal were voted on and 25% of the owners voted against it, then the proposal wouldn’t be approved.
So, if there are only six units, you just need one other owner to vote no.
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Any proposal like this requires a special resolution, so bear in mind that if the proposal were voted on and 25% of the owners voted against it, then the proposal wouldn’t be approved.
So, if there are only six units, you just need one other owner to vote no.
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My first thought is that you need a new by-law that states any changes to common property must contain detailed plans, the details of the tradespeople who must be licensed and insured, and an undertaking that the current and future owners of that lot will pay for the repairs and maintenance of the installation in perpetuity.
As far as you current issue goes, you could get the committee (if you have one) to object at council (and I’m thinking that fire safety would be an issue). If you have no committee, you can do it yourself.
Considering this is not for the benefit of a resident, the owner of the apartment on the third floor probably needs to rethink their priorities or come up with a detailed and compelling case.
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According to this fact sheet, your chairman MUST rule motions out of order on the following grounds:
Ruling motions out of order
A motion must be ruled out of order if:
- the motion, if carried, would conflict with the legislation or the body corporate by-laws
- the motion, if carried, would conflict with another motion already voted on at the meeting
- the motion, if carried, would be unlawful or unenforceable for another reason
- the substance of the motion was not included on the agenda for the meeting.
The person chairing the meeting must give reasons for ruling a motion out of order, which must be recorded in the minutes. Those who go to the meeting and are entitled to vote may, by ordinary resolution, reverse a ruling.
The grounds could be that the ruling was unenforceable (due to previous votes and passage of time). You can’t prevent someone from proposing a motion – even when it is believed it will be out of order – but the chair can rule it out of order at the meeting without further discussion. After that, it’s just a war of attrition to see who gives up first.
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There is a provision under the Act (Section 232 [2]) that allows you to seek orders from NCAT to compel the strata committee or owners corporation to take action when they have either refused or failed to do so.
Just initiating the mandatory mediation procedure at Fair Trading may be enough to get them to act with a bit more vigour.
You might also consider making a claim directly with your strata scheme’s insurer for compensation for any costs or loss caused by the water incursion.
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There are a number of processes you can pursue at NCAT to get orders requiring your owners corporation to do or not do certain things.
Section 232 is as good a place to start as any.
Meanwhile, if you insist on copying a pasting material from other sources, please clean it up of any excess coding. Your most recent post is a mess and if you can’t be bothered to tidy it up, neither can I.
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One of our units has a vinyl/floating/whatever floor contravening the by-law requiring the owner to have the floor covered or treated to prevent noise nuisance … At the mediation hearing, the floor’s owner insisted that the legally-proper procedure is for the afflicted downstairs resident to apply for mediation. Why is that? Doesn’t the OC have an interest in seeing that by-laws are enforced.
The problem here may be that your strata committee may have taken the wrong route on this. If a by-law has been breached, you issue a Notice to Comply.
If the resident or lot owners doesn’t comply with the Notice To Comply, you take them straight to NCAT – no need to go to mediation – and ask for fines and ultimately orders.
The committee has therefore added an unnecessary step.
But, to answer your question, the offending owner is clutching at straws. If they have breached a by-law then it has nothing to do with the tenant downstairs (although they could be called to give evidence for either side).
Interestingly, the recent Court of Appeals ruling on pets implies that anyone can do anything they want in their homes provided it doesn’t trouble anyone else in the block, and therefore you can’t have pre-emptive by-laws to stop them.
By-laws that establish minimum standards for flooring have been cited by some strata law experts as examples of situations where a problem needs to be established before action can be taken. Pre-emptive by-laws that set out to prevent a problem with a catch-all rule could therefore be seen to be harsh, unconscionable or discriminatory.
The correct procedure would then be to take a complaint against the owner with the noisy floor. The solution for strata schemes could be to establish parameters under which noise is less likely to be intrusive and breaches of which they will resolve to pursue on behalf of owners if they are breached.
That way, you are telling owners they can lay any flooring they like but if noise transmission exceeds a certain level, the owners corp and not justtheir individual neighbours will take action against them at NCAT.
The niss ue then becomes what is a reasonable level of noise transmission and it’s certainly not the Australian Building Standards acoustic level of 48 (62 Decibels) which is a fraction better than 6mm cork on concrete. Why? Becauae for too long property developers have been able to manipulate standards in the Australian building industry to suit their bottom line rather than our right to peace and quiet.
Anyway, the person with the inadequate flooring might have a case, only not for the reasons they have stated. Let’s hope they don’t read Flat Chat.
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The car owner is now submitting a claim to cover cost of addressing damage to the car paintwork. The Strata Manager has advised this is not covered under OC insurance as the vehicle is not OC property.
Wow! What a narrow and fundamentally flawed idea of liability. So if your car’s handbrake fails and it runs down a hill and rolls over a prized collection of garden gnomes, your insurer isn’t liable because they didn’t cover the gnomes?
If the strata manager fails to make a claim, the car owner can go straight to the strata insurer. The next step after that would be to ask the strata commitee why they are employing that particular strata manager.
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My question is: When does a window become “inaccessible”? For instance, if a window that was safely accessible to owners for years is now not so because an owner cannot access it, be it for age or health reasons, does that make it “inaccessible”?
No, because it could be accessible by a cleaner or a neighbour or family member or support worker, and that’s exactly what the owners corporation would argue if an incapacitated owner asked them to clean their windows and they didn’t want to do it.
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Greetings fellow New South Welshmen and Women, My question is: can a model by-law adopted by our building be challenged at NCAT or a higher authority on the grounds that – to me it seems – it enriches or provides for possible enrichment of some owners at the expense others.
Any by-law can be challenged by anyone for any reason – but that doesn’t mean the plaintiff would have any chance of success. In this case, the by-law is obviously intended to pass the cost of cleaning inaccessible windows to the owners corp and has nothing to do with people who aren’t (or claim they aren’t) able to clean accessible windows themselves.
You provide no example of this and you seem to be seeking problems where none exist. This is all bordering too close to “bush lawyering” for comfort.
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This is not a matter for the strata committee. According to section 108 it is a matter for all the owners to decide.
I believe Section 108 only applies to physical changes to the common property. If Section 108 doesn’t apply in this instance, then I don’t think this has to be decided at a general meeting. Having a general meeting to deice to lay carpet seems to be an excess of bureaucracy for what would be a simple and easily reversible decision.
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I think that a change from tiles to carpet is covered by section 108 of the strata schemes act. You will need a special resolution to change/alter the common party at a general meeting of all owners. It is not 75% of all owners only those who turn up at the meeting.
The question is, are you actually changing common property by putting carpet over it? The tiles are still there and I can’t imagine why anyone would go through the trauma of digging up tiles just to put underlay and carpet on concrete.
Yes, it would alter the appearance, but it would still be in keeping with the rest of the building where carpet is already in place.
I reckon this is a purely cosmetic alteration and therefore no special resolution is required … but I could be wrong.
Also worth noting that Section 110 allows for the installation (by owners) of hard floors without a special resolution. Again, logic would suggest that installing something let intrusive than a hard floor would be allowed similar leeway.
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One interesting aspect of this is whether this comes under NSW law or Queensland’s. My first thought is to check with the SCA to see if the NSW strata management company is a member and ask for their help.
Or you could even ask the new strata manger to get on the blower and tell them to do the right thing, as a professional courtesy.
Your biggest challenge is going to be getting your documents back from the NSW strata manager but they are not permitted to keep them once they have been sacked.
This is a real mess and a good reason for never committing to cross-border contracts.
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As members of the owners corporation, all owners are entitled to read just about all correspondence with or from the owners corp or strata committee – including even “sealed” court judgements.
The one exception to this that’s generally allowed is communications between the committee and the scheme’s lawyer with regard to a dispute between them and that specific owner.
So the question you need to ask them is this: are you taking legal action against me and if not, can you please inform me in detail what the delay is so I can fix it?
If that doesn’t work, you could apply for mediation with a view to seeking orders under section 188, compelling the strata committee to provided you with information that you are entitled to know. That might stir them into action.
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The OC and the owners want to know … when part of each lot has to be demolished and rebuilt, is the OC obliged to rebuild so that each owner gets what they had, or can the OC just return each lot owner the amount of space they had but not walls, windows, functionality etc.?
I believe that, unless alterations to the original structure have been approved and by-lawed at some point, then your only obligation is to restore common property to its original state. That said, with a large enough majority, the owners corp can agree to whatever it wants, provided the appropriate by-laws are in place.
Re by-law: My understanding is that unless responsibility for the maintenance and repair of altered common property (no matter who it’s altered by) is passed by by-law to the lot owner, it rests with the OC. Is that incorrect?
No, it’s correct. However, if the owner insists on their additions to the common property being repaired or maintained, the OC can insist that unapproved structures and additions be removed.
I think your problem is going to be establishing what your starting point for additions and alterations is, since you have no records. However, that is not a good enough reason for reinstating bodgy works.
I sense that mediation and conciliation would be the best way forward.
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