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Hi Jimmy, Could strata plans restrict the type of pets? Allow gold fish or birds but not dogs or cats for example.
You have to look at the fundamentals of the ruling – that by-laws can’t prevent people from doing what they want provided their choices don’t impact negatively on ther neighbours. From that perspective, banning cats and dogs would be harsh.
However, since the OC can create by-laws about what can and can’t happen on common property, you might be able to pass a by-law that says animals must be carried in the lift or across common property.
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Similar laws – not by-laws – have existed in NSW for yonks, going back to the 1996 Act, if not before.
But NSW has sunk into the mire of expectation that a) people will behave badly, given a chance and b) the Tribunal can’t be relied upon to defend residents’ rights.
The latter is a valid concern and that authoritarians among us love imposing their will on their neighbours. I guess we should just be thankful that they aren’t running for high political office.
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There is so much wrong about that email. The SC can’t over ride the by-law even if the by-law is now arguably of no force. The SC can’t guarantee the by-law will be repealed or changed at the AGM.
If the by-law is no longer enforceable – and it definitely isn’t – then it doesn’t matter whether or not the OC can revoke it. The by-law has effectively gone and all the “if and ands” won’t save it.
Your post is unnecessarily alarmist. The FlossieB should go ahead and fill in the form.
The only thing that would change the situation would be if the losing side asked for a “stay” of the implementation of the ruling, prior to an appeal, and they haven’t.
The “no pets” by-law may still be there in print but it has ceased to exist in terms of there being repercussions if FlossieB takes a pet into the block.
However there are model by-laws that contol the conditions for allowing pets and they come into force in the absence of other effective by-laws. Hence the form still being valid.
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… that’s up to the contractor or their employer. Eg they might have to competence to perform the check themselves if those certificates do not exist. Or they might require that the certification is done first. So can make sense for stratas to do those things anyway.
That’s exactly the point I was trying to make. It depends a lot on how much usage the anchor points get but strata schemes could either do their own checks or foot the bill (for additional hours worked by qualified people) for the contractor to do theirs.
And as a building manager, would you want anyone working on your roof if you knew safety chacks hadn’t been done.
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Austman is correct, garages are ‘non-habitable’ and hence water penetration is not seen as wrong.
Unless it was an indication of seepage from outside that was potetially damaging the structure?
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It sounds like you got a result but I’m not sure what happened here.
Which letter was withdrawn, yours or theirs?
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This needs a good edit but I am reluctant to do it in case I misrepresent the facts.
Is it a case of a committee member having installed an electrical conduit on common property without permission and the strata manager having failed to issue a warning or order to remove it?
If not, what is the question?
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It’s true. The Appeals Court has overturned all “no-pets” by-laws in NSW. Check out the story on the front page
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It’s the contractors or their actual employers that must ensure that the workplace meets the WHS requirements for the work they are doing.
According to this factsheet (which admittedly is seven years old) it’s a joint responsibility beween the contractor and the client.
But something else occurs to me – how are individual contractors supposed to ensure that a strata block’s equipment is work safe? The simple answer would be the provision of a certificate by the strata manager or committee to prove installations like roof anchors had been checked.If you want to be alerted when anyone replies to your posts or responds to this topic, please register and login, then you will be able to subscribe to the topic. The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers. NB: Longer threads may spill over to additional pages - look for the numbers on the bottom right, under the last post.
I am neither a lawyer nor an insurance agent but I thing part 5 of schedule 2 applies to your situation. Section 99 seems to be for larger schemes where the strata committee (company) hasn’t got round to getting required insurance a concerned owner goes ahead and arranges it themselves then gets compesated by the strata scheeme.
Schedule 2, Part 5 seems to say, in a small two or three-lot, single-level strata scheme:
1. you need to get insurance
2. you can get it individually or collectively.
3. You should work out with your neighbour(s) what it’s going to be.
4. If one gets strata insurance individually, then the other(s) must look after themselves too.
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… from what I can gather from Jimmy’s and others’ responses, only the NCAT or a court can decide responsibility for legal costs, in effect rendering the bylaw invalid.
I’m not a lawyer so it’s only my personal opinion that the by-law would be invalid and the only way you would find out for sure if that was true would be to test it at NCAT.
In any case, letting owners know, by whatever means, that all costs will be pursued for vexatious, mischievous and baseless claims that were bound to fail anyway, should be enough to deter serial strata pests and hobby litigants, without putting off genuine complainants.
I get the amout of distress that serial pests can cause to a community but I don’t think the answer is a bogus by-law. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
And I’m also guessing that this by-law may be there, initially at least, to deter pests rather than bona fide complaints, and if the latter is the result, the serial pests should take a good long look at how much trouble they are causing others with their petty vendettas.
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As a visitor to a block of units where the occupants have installed a camera on their door… how do we progress the removal of this camera which picks up everyone’s comings & goings?You ask the person you were visiting to deal with it, either as a tenant (they are entitled to complain) or an owner. I’m afraid you have no rights whatsoever in this regard, including the illusory “right’ not to be surveilled by video.If you want to be alerted when anyone replies to your posts or responds to this topic, please register and login, then you will be able to subscribe to the topic. The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers. NB: Longer threads may spill over to additional pages - look for the numbers on the bottom right, under the last post.
OK, let me stress this is not legal advice and it is just my personal opinion, but I can’t see any contravention direct or otherwise of Section 108 of the Act. It says:
108 Changes to common property(1) Procedure for authorising changes to common property
An owners corporation or an owner of a lot in a strata scheme may add to the common property, alter the common property or erect a new structure on common property for the purpose of improving or enhancing the common property.
(2) Any such action may be taken by the owners corporation or owner only if a special resolution has first been passed by the owners corporation that specifically authorises the taking of the particular action proposed.
OK, you have neither added to common property, changed common property nor erected a new structure under the terms of S. 108, so that claim is highly dubious. In any case, their claim should state how this “direct contravention” exists – not just some airy-fairy waving of generalisations.
If the gate has been there since the original owner sold it to you, then it was installed under the terms of the 1996 strata Act, and there is an interesting item in that Act.
113 Restrictions on powers of owners corporation during initial period
(1) An owners corporation must not, during the initial period … alter any common property or erect any structure on the common property otherwise than in accordance with a strata development contract.A smart lawyer might argue that since the gate was installed when the block was new, it can be assumed it was part of the strata development contract – unless they can provide proof to the contrary.
And talking of smart lawyers, our sponsors Sachs Gerace Lawyers have this case study on their website. It’s not exactly the same but it’s worth a read. In it, an owners corporation tried to force an owner to reinstate common property because they said the lot owner didn’t have proper permissions for work (installation of skylights).
The lot owner sought a retrospective by-law and the owners corp refused. The owner challenged this at NCAT and lost initially but won on Appeal (thereby creating a precedent for future NCAT cases of this nature).
The point I would make is this, if you were prepared to agree to a retrospective by-law, taking responsibility for the maintenance of the gate, then they can hardly refuse and expect that refusal to be upheld at NCAT.
If you want the owners corporation to accept responsibilty for the maintenance of the gate, then you have a longer and tougher fight, but you would have grounds (although no guarantees).
But they should know that any attempt to force you to remove the gate is on very shaky grounds and could cost the owners (but not you) a lot of money if they are determined to pursue it.
FYI, the general meeting of the owners corp can order the committee and the strata manager to drop the case, if the item is on the agenda.
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As we have discussed many times on this site, and I’m with Sir Humphrey on this, you really don’t need anything special beyond an electrical meter on common property supply, if that’s what you’re using, so the owners corp knows how much to charge you for “their” electricity. And, otherwise just a power point in your garage connected to your domestic supply.
Most of us park our cars overnight where they could be charging on cheaper electricity. The petrol pump has brainwashed us into thinking that the only way to refuel our vehicles is as and when we need to, rather than while we are asleep.
The government is going to roll out charging stations all over rural areas for longer journeys where a top-up is required.
A while ago one block I know sent out a questionnaire asking owners if they thought they might want to buy an electric vehicle in the next two, five or ten years. The information such a survey might garner would be very valuable in terms of your future planning – certainly better than basing anything on hopes and fears.
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There is no “statute of limitations” that I know of but there are (probably non-legal) principles of accepted practise.
I draw your attention to this discussion about the grounds under which you can demand costs be imposed against the other side in a case at NCAT.
Now, I would be writing to your committee to ask specifically what the problem with the gate is and what you can do to remedy this.
If it is the mere existence of the gate, that is probably not enough. If it is concerns over the future maintenance of the gate, then that can be negotiated – and you are happy to commence negotiations whenever they are ready.
However, if it is in any way a malicious or spiteful move by the committee or any of its members, you will be happy for them to take the matter to NCAT where you will claim full legal costs against the strata scheme for “special circumstances” under which costs may be awarded, specifically, that the matter had limited or no possibility of success and where the claim was “weak, misconceived and bound to fail”.
In the meantime, you might want to talk to our sponsors StrataAnswers who offer low-key, low-cost assistance in exactly this kind of issue.
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