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… check with the OC/BC’s insurance company to see if it’s covered.And I believe that Austman has established some time ago that owners can approach the insurers directly without going through the strata committee or managers. (If not, someone did).
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Jimmy, could you please give me a reference or link to the strata law change you mentioned.
Strata Answers have pretty much covered it in their response below yours.
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Now, I could go to the Tribunal. The Committee will argue that their approach is fiscally prudent, wise, has worked before, is in the best interests of all, blah blah blah. And who knows? The Tribunal might buy it!
And who knows, they might not. This is another case of an owner asking for advice about how to solve a problem, provided we don’t suggest the easiest and most obvious route.
Just going to Fair Trading to start a mediation might get things rolling. Then pursuing it, if not resolved, at NCAT is a the most obvious way of getting this done. Even if you were to try legal action through the courts, they’d ask why you didn’t try the Tribunal.
Get good professional advice (Strata Answers or Sachs Gerace Lawyers) and follow it, and don’t try to do it with one hand tied behind your back by second-guessing the outcome.
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Yes, I know – the building in kings cross that hosts a huge sign from a well known soft drink bottler would have to be drawing a substantial income from that.
The chances are the building in Kings Cross – which was an hotel and a shopping centre before it was an apartment block – is getting zilch from that site which would have been sold separately.
Same applies to the Avis block just down the hill where the signage rights were pre-sold by the developer. Also the signage rights on the Eastern end of the Altair building which were attached to a small apartment in the building.
The block was saved from having a commercial carbuncle on its Eastern face by the pre-Olympic planning ban on new billboards in exposed locations. The apartment owner, connected to the original developer, relinquished the signage rights to the owners corp as they were worthless.
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There’s a very important condition attached to the by-laws that allow people to change common property – and that says that unless responsibility for affected common property is passed to the lot owner, then is stays with the owners corporation.
Section 54 (1) of the strata Act 1996 (under which this work would have been done) says, under “By-law must provide for maintenance of property”
(1) A by-law to which this Division applies must:
(a) provide that the owners corporation is to continue to be responsible for the proper maintenance of, and keeping in a state of good and serviceable repair, the common property or the relevant part of it, or
(b) impose on the owner or owners concerned the responsibility for that maintenance and upkeep.
If the strata scheme didn’t demand a by-law or invoke section 1(b) when the work was done, the pipes probably remain common property and the owners corporation is probably liable for fixing your ceiling.However, if there is a registered by-law that imposes responsibility for the pipes on the lot owner (under 1b) then it’s your responsibility.If the building manager can’t show you proof that the by-law exists, then the owners corp should pay up. It’s not the current owners’ fault if previous owners let it through on a nod and wink, but then it’s not your fault either.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.
My understanding from reading a few years ago is that you need to look at a tax ruling on strata income. It is readily available but I don’t have it at my fingertips.
Here it is. The irony is that you can be assessed for tax on the your share of the income from letting common property but you are unlikely to ever see the money, except via reduced levies.
But many strata schemes rent their roof space to telecoms companies and just pay any taxable amounts as if they were compnay.
The biggest obstacle to this plan would be if your local council decided it would rather not have advertising on the side of your block.
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Easy solution – if you don’t want to pay strata fees, buy a house.Hardly an easy solution if you already own a flat. Many apartments in the past have been sold on the basis of unrealistically low levies which the original owners try to live with until wear and tear and the requirements of sinking funds make this unfeasible. When the bubble bursts, levies go up by a lot more than the gradual rise you would see normally.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’d be tempted to wait and see if the strata law change (the one that had the “compulsory pets” amendment attached to it) come through. That could allow you to make sustainable changes to common property without needing a by-law.
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Can you change the number of committee members set at an AGM? We had 3 committee members, 2 have resigned and an EGM has been called. Can we put in a motion to increase the number of committee members or do we have to wait till the next AGM?
Here’s a very belated reply – and the answer is that I don’t think you can change the number of members on the committee in mid-term.
However, the remaining member(s) of the committee can co-opt two new members to see out the rest of the term until the next AGM.
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Normal meeting procedure includes that a motion proposed by one person should be seconded by another member.
I’m not sure that seconding applies in NSW strata committee or general meetings (although I have seen it done).
I’m thinking about Schedule 2 (14) of the Act which says this:
Only person who may vote can move motion
A person is not entitled to move a motion unless the person is entitled to vote on the motion.
So, unless the windows obsessive is on the committee, it’s really quite simple. The chair asks anyone on the committee if they want to move the motion. They are greeted with deafening silence and then declares the motion defunct and moves on.
If the determined owner is on the committee, take a look at Section 19 (a) of Schedule 1 of the Act (General meeting procedures) and section 15 of Schedule 2 of the Act (Strata Committee meeting procedures) .
Under these provisions, the chair can declare a motion incompetent – i.e. not to be discussed or voted on – if its approval would breach a by-law of the scheme.
The owners corp could pass a by-law instructing the committee not to consider any motion that is substantially similar to two previously rejected motions proposed in the same strata year (between AGMs).
Thus the chair could reject the motion out of hand because a third or subsequent consideration of the motion would be in breach of the by-laws.
Even better, adopt (via a by-law), a set of standing orders that would include limits on the number times the same issue could be discussed. Again, the chair could declare any such motion incompetent because it would be in breach of the “enabling” by-law.
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I have passed on your contact details to a trusted journalist who writes for the Age. She will be in touch.
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I know I would be on the phone to my colleagues in the media. They’d be all over this. I realise you have already rejected this suggestion … and here you are, suffering even more for even longer because selfish scumbags will take advantage of any hesitation to act resolutely.
I’m not saying “I told you so …” but I kind of am.
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does anyone know if a compulsory strata manager can set levy amount? I found the following statement
A compulsorily appointed strata manager (CSM) can do anything the terms of their appointment permits. In most cases this includes drawing up a budget and setting the levies to finance it.
They are different from a regular strata manager who has to do what the strata owners want (within legal bounds). In the case of compulsory or statutory appointment, the owners have to do what the strata manager wants.
Seeking the appointment of a CSM is the Nuclear option and if you are ever considering it, you and the other owners with whom you are in dispute (assuming you are in a dysfunctional strata scheme) need to know that for at least a year and probably two, you will lose the right to manage your own strata affairs.
That means the CSM can order work to be done by their choice of tradies at their agreed costs. That’s why some tradies say that having a good relationship with CSMs is a licence to print money.
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To quote The Castle, tell them they’re dreamin’. The owner must compensate the owners corporation or they risk someone in the future taking them to NCAT to have their land grab (because that’s what it is) rescinded.
There is a principle established by the High Court of NSW for a minimum level of compensation – and I stress this is the minimum, not a set level – that the owner expanding into common property must get an agreed estimated value on the improved property, minus the agreed value of the existing property plus the costs of the improvements, with the difference being paid to the owners corporation.
I can’t stress the word “Agreed” enough. You don’t have to accept any figures this land-grabber puts up. They have to be independent, verifiable estimates and you can demand to see quotes, final invoices and bank statements to prove you aren’t being swindled.
If the renovator doesn’t agree to those condition, then you are perfectly entitled to refuse to allow the work to proceed, with a clear warning that you will have it stopped by the Tribunal if they do go ahead, even with the agreement of the majority of your neighbours.
Even if every other owner in the block agreed to the renovation without proper compensation, this would be illegal under a principle known as “fraud against a minority”, which is basically when someone in a corporation can get enough support to legally pass resolutions to the unreasonable financial detriment of other members.
If I were you, I would approach someone like our sponsors Strata Answers to advise you and maybe even manage the process on your behalf.
Meanwhile, your strata manager sounds like a box-ticking clerk and is not only a waste of space but an obstruction to the good management of your building.
In your shoes I would get rid of her, sign up to something like our other sponsors Stratabox to self-manage your scheme and use Strata Answers for anything tricky or legal like this issue.
Strata finances aren’t that difficult to manage in a small scheme. If your strata manager says that’s all she’s employed to do, cut out the middle person and do it yourselves.
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… could you get others in the same position to put up a case to get your group separated out in payment terms of the overall building quote?
NSW strata law is pretty clear on this. Common property works must be paid out of existing funds, special levies or strata loans (repaid out of increased levies).
Furthermore, levies have to be charged on the basis of unit entitlements, and on no other basis, including relative need for works done.
Your options could include asking for an audit of the quotes to explain why your costs would be higher than if you had this done separately, and to find out how many others are in the same boat, with a view to gettin their support.
You might also want to check to see if the price has been inflated because you are an owners corporation (which some contractors see as a soft touch).
And you could ask the committee to examine the possibility of getting a strata loan instead of imposing a special levy, which would help you (and others) a lot but could annoy people who have the cash on hand and might object to paying the interest on the loan.
You could even take action at Fair Trading for mediation if they refuse to contemplate that, as a decision not to at least offer that option to all the owners could be seen as harsh and discriminatory
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