Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
That’s one memorable quote I had forgotten. These days I’m more likely to say, if you do nothing, you get the committee you deserve.
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.
54 Functions of officers and strata committee may be given to strata managing agent(1) The instrument of appointment of a strata managing agent may provide that the strata managing agent has and may exercise all the functions of the chairperson, secretary, treasurer or strata committee of an owners corporation or the functions of those officers or the strata committee specified in the instrument.
(2) However, the chairperson, secretary, treasurer and strata committee of an owners corporation may continue to exercise all or any of the functions that the strata managing agent is authorised to exercise.
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.
Despite several notices throughout this website urging posters not to name companies with whom they are in dispute (or at all) you posted a link (now removed) to a strata management company which seemed to imply they were acting corruptly. It seems your neighbours aren’t the only ones who play fast and loose with the rules.
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.
It will be in the by-laws … or not! If there is a by-law stating what you may or may not have on your terrace then that is the only basis on which you can be “breached”. Your notices to comply should state the terms of the by-law that you are alleged to have breached.
If they don’t have a by-law, tell them to leave you alone. If they do have a by-law, but its terms are being over-reached, let them take you to NCAT for fines and then challenge it there.
Either way, if the situation is as you say, tell them to do this through proper channels or leave you alone
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, the mechanics in NSW are thus:
The owners corporation elects the committee at the AGM and the committee then elects the office-bearers. At any point in the year until the next AGM the members of the strata committee can declare an office “vacant” and elect someone else to it. That person remains on the committee, however. It requires a special resolution by owners at a general meeting (75 per cent of people voting) to remove a committee member mid-term.
Drilling deeper, at the AGM, the process is
- The chairman calls for nominations for the committee
- The owners vote on how many people they want on the committee: maximum nine, minimum 1.
- If there are more nominations than agreed numbers on the committee, an election is held.
- The election is conducted by people writing the names of the candidates they want, up to the maximum, on a BLANK piece of paper.
- Unit entitlements count as every election is effectively a poll vote (so it’s good to have friends, literally, in high places).
- Any election that doesn’t follow the above process is invalid.
By the way, co-owners can’t self-nominate (your co-owner has to nominate you) and you can’t be nominated by someone who is standing for election themselves. More than one person from the same lot can’t be on the committee and you don’t have to be an owner to serve on the committee so long as you are nominated by one. There are other restrictions too arcane to go into here.
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.
Unless you had an agreement before the case was heard that the loser would pay all costs, you have to be guided by NCAT which rarely if ever awards costs and certainly not on this scale.
I have a feeling that the lawyer may be trying it on and, on that basis, I would be raising a complaint with the Legal Services Commissioner.
Lawyers don’t get to decide how much the other side of a dispute pays. That is up to judges and NCAT Members. Perhaps the builder has left the lawyer in the lurch and they are just trying to cover their costs.
But click on that link, talk to someone at the Legal Services Commission and take it from there. Keep us posted on how you go.
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, it’s not up to the strata manager to make sure owners are up to date with their levies – his or her only statutory duty is to make sure they are charged the obligatory 10 per cent penalty interest for late payment.
But, as to your central question, the answer is, yes, this could be worth running through Fair Trading and NCAT. It may be that when the strata manager is taken to Fair Trading for mediation, they might just quit.
But NCAT will be more swayed by evidence of incompetence or fraud than a yarn about the dubious circumstances under which the strata manager was appointed.
So get your ducks lined up and your evidence gathered before you make a move.
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.
This is harder to do when you aren’t on the committee and, in fact, trying to implement it before you are on the committee may be one way of making sure you never get elected.
Proposing a resolution at a general meeting that the office-bearers have to resume their duties from the strata manager is not going to win you many friends.
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.
Fidelity Guarantee insurance generally covers “fraudulent misappropriation” of funds. Was the secretary trying to acquire personal sunshades on the strata scheme’s dime? Or was he or she just over-reaching on the remit they had been given. If it’s the latter, it’s not even close to fraud or misappropriation.
Don’t ascribe to malice anything that can just as easily be explained by incompetence.
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 guessing here but I think this may be a misuse or very specific interpretation of the word “stratum” (which has several meanings in property law).
But putting this in the context of standard practice in strata law, it reads to me that it is defining the area of the balcony that is common property connected to this particular lot – from the surface of the slab to the bottom of the slab above. The fact that both slabs are also common property is neither here nor there.
Regarding the change of tiles, if they did so with permission (but without taking on responsibility for the tiles or the seal underneath) then the tiles continue to be the responsibility of the owners corp.
If they changed the tiles without permission then any claim they might make to repair or replace them in the future could be countered with a claim for restoring the original tiles.
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.