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I don’t know if it’s NSW only, but here the logic goes that all RESIDENTS and owners have to be registered with addresses, contact numbers and email addresses on the strata roll. The strata roll is an Owners Corproation document. All Owners Corp documents must be made accessible to owners.
We had it confirmed by SCA-NSW President Robert Anderson in a recent podcast that this means that all NSW strata owners’ contact details must be made available to other owners on request (and the payment of a $60 fee).
If you have similar provisions without legally established exclusions in Vic strata law, then the SCA contract is probably illegal and definitely open to challenge (possibly under their own invisible code of conduct).
I do know that in a case that went to the WA High Court a few years ago, a decision not to give an owner the right to see the names and addresses of other owners was overturned on the grounds that whatever they call the OC in the wild West couldn’t deny access just because the owner might misuse the contacts.
Anyone in Vic with a clearer idea of this?
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This has become a standard response from strata managers and it is tantamount to SCA Victoria acting as a cartel. A contract is a two way agreement. If your strata manager says they have to use the SCA contract to maintain their SCA membership, then that’s their problem, not yours (except if you really, really want to keep the same strata manager). If you strike out or amend any of the items in the contract, the contract is still valid, unless the strata manager refuses to sign it. In which case, on principle, I would say “thanks for your service” and show them the door but not before finding a strata manager with a spine or a sense of decency.
Here are some statistics for you:
Number of strata managers who have been chucked out of SCA Vic for allowing their contracts to be changed = 0
Number of strata schemes in Victoria saddled with unfair strata management contracts = X*
*X = number of strata schemes in Victoria with strata managers.Things won’t change until the people paying the bills start demanding change. Strata managers won’t demand a change in contracts that favor them to a massive extent until they start losing business.
All said, your most fundamental problem is that you have a government that doesn’t give a flying fajita about strata owners and a Press that has a giant “too-hard” basket labelled strata.
Just over 20 years ago my partner Sue Williams and a few other disgruntled strata owners and professionals got together and formed the Owners Corproration Network. Now it has a seat at the table when the whole issue of strata laws is discussed in NSW (leading to the law changes that came in at the beginning of this month, among others).
What works in the dodgy dealers’ favour is that strata owners are terrified of damaging the value of their properties through bad publicity. But these days, negative publicity in the media isn’t even yesterday’s fish and chip paper, it’s this morning’s cat video. Get organised, get noisy and you might effect change.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 may be wrong but I believe Owners Corporation manager is a Victorian term. Is your strata manager based in Vic? The usual terminology in NSW is strata managing agent.
This is important because strata tax laws are different for NSW and Vic.
Also, unless your strata scheme is earning income above and beyond levies, then you are not subject to making a tax return except to say “Nil tax”. If that’s the case, this sounds like a nice little earner for doing next to nothing. Ask your strata manager exactly what it is that they have done that you are paying for.
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SCA-Vic only supplies contracts to its members. However, they have sent us the document they send to strata committees explain what the contracts says and does. You can access it HERE. It’s pretty comprehensive and worth a read.
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Before we dive too deeply into this, I’m curious to know what kind of noise it is. TV sound, voices, footsteps, water flow? They are all different and might require different solutions.
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First of all, there’s a principle that comes up a lot in property disputes – buyer beware! This means, loosely, that you acquire a property’s problems when you buy the property’
It sounds like your pre-sale strata search did not reveal that there had been a problem with the apartment’s floor, or you didn’t realise the significance of the information. Either way, unless you can prove that the vendor deliberately misled you, the issue is yours to fix.
Even if you can show you were misled, pursuing the vendor may be more trouble than it’s worth.
Carpetting the bedroom floors is an entirely reasonable request and anyone who, like the vendor, removes the most effective insulation – carpet and underlay – from bedroom floors is a selfish ass.
Regarding liability, you are entitled to ask why the downstairs neighbour has waited until the apartment was sold before taking action and a Tribunal might – and I stress MIGHT – rule that they have shared culpability for not making more of an issue of this – especially if there is nothing in the strata records about flooring problems.
As for the proposed by-law, and I am not a lawyer, but the floors are common property and the committee will be able to make demands on the quality of flooring that you install when you fix it. If the existing floor was okay by the current standards when it was installed, there’s not much they can do.
Finally, this sounds like one of those disputes that you want to resolve as amicably as possible. Meadiation and compromise are the answer. Be prepared to give a little, even, for instance, agreeing to make it a condition of future rental that tenants are aware of the problem and agree not to make excessive noise.
That might limit the range of tenants to whom you can let the flat but may be a small price to pay in the long run.
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Section 139 (2) of theAct says this:
By-law cannot prevent dealing relating to lot
No by-law is capable of operating to prohibit or restrict the devolution of a lot or a transfer, lease, mortgage or other dealing relating to a lot.
I would think that means if the DA says it’s residential then the strata scheme can’t change it to non-residential. But I do know of buildings that were approved as short-tem lets only and the owners had to move out when it was discovered they were living there.
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There is a new version available, I believe, which takes into account the significant law changes that have occurred and are underway. Meanwhile, if you listen to last week’s podcast, you will also discover that Fair Trading is planning to issue its own standard contract (according to SCA-NSW president Robert Anderson). So go into a holding pattern if you can, at least until the strata manager produces the 2025 SCA contract
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It’s likely the OC will get the bill to comply.
Surely the OC can pass that on to the commercial business under regs that require lot owners to maintain their property. No?
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Is this likely to cause sharing conflicts for the OC to try and sort out?
Well, yes, but it’s hardly insurmountable. If there are those numbers involved (unlikely) then there is tried and tested technology that shares the power supply among those who need it, limits car charging when domestic demand is the priority and – here’s the important part – the strata scheme can get the people who want it to pay for it (the installation, not just the electricity).
The potential for EV charging boosts the value of all the properties in the block, in the same way that having a gym does. Only a minority use it but most potential purchasers like to know it’s there.
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Oddly enough, this by-law could fall foul of the same legal ruling that had no-pets by-laws shredded across the country.
I’m no lawyer, but I think the problem was that the no-pets by-law didn’t allow for any reasonable exceptions and therefore was considered harsh and discriminatory. It wasn’t about pets – it was about the fair interpretation of the law.
In this case, it will depend very much on how the by-law is worded and what restrictions it imposes. For instance, it’s very rare that all the electrical consumption is being used at the same time.
So, for instance, the EV owner could be allowed to charge the car between midnight and 6am when everyone else is tucked up in bed and it wouldn’t get close to the power supply limit. And if the by-law doesn’t allow for that, then they could argue that it’s harsh and discriminatory and therefore invalid and it will be next stop the Supreme Court.
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Thank you for your kind words. There are two elements to transmitted noise – one is the sound insulation or lack of it, the other is the behaviour of the people creating the noise.
You are right in assuming that it will be trickier to prove a “nuisance” case, but not impossible. You need to gather evidence of what the noise sounds like, when it occurs and how frequently. This could be recordings and stat decs from friends and neighbours.
Then you can approach the neighbour and ask them what it is that they are doing that creates the thumping sound. It’s worth them cooperating on this as the next step is messy for both of you – mediation and maybe the tribunal.
I have an upstairs neighbour whose original owner put in a cheap floor then buggered off overseas and sold. The floor has never been brought up to the building’s now stringent standards but the occupants don’t make much noise … except when the owner’s teenage son is visiting; he can’t move from one room to the other without running.
If it ever became unbearable, I too would be looking down the barrel of a trip to Fair Trading and NCAT, so I sympathise.
By the way, you could get a different acoustic consultant to give you another interpretation of the test results. If the limit is 50, then 52 is a breach.
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The best thing you can do may be to raise a complaint with Fair Trading and they should, at least, put in a call to the strata manager asking them what’s going on. You can make the complaint online on this help page.
While that is going on, have a look at your contract and see where you think they might have breached it. That’s where you’ll find the grounds for sacking them.
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