[Jimmy-T]

@N860CR said:
The only avenue open to us was to start the process over again with another day at the tribunal (at our cost, of course)

Or you tell the commercial owners that you will go to NCAT, forcing them to take down the signs.  And you willl seek orders at NCAT to have them removed from the committee.

Trust me, NCAT Members will not look kindly on being led up the garden path like that.  The commercial owners contempt for the process will come back to bit them on the bum.

But then, of course, you have to be prepared to do it.

It’s not easy but bullies depend on good people giving up This would be a prime example of when a strata consultant who could come in, spell out the law and lay out the consequences would be very useful.

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[Jimmy-T]

The legislation is absolutely clear on this and it is spelled out here in Schedule 2 of the Act.

In brief summary, any committee meeting has to be notified to all owners three days before the meeting and that notification must contain an agenda of the meeting. The committee may only consider items that are on that agenda. The meeting must have at least half the committee members there (before “proxies” are considered) for decisions to be valid.

To prevent this happening again, you might write to the committee and tell them to stop all work immediately unless they want to be charged individually for the work done.

They should immediately convene a proper meeting under the terms set out in Schedule 2 of the Act to confirm they have the authority to proceed with the work. 

In the meantime they should issue a full and unequivocal apology to all owners for not having followed the correct procedures and undertake not to ever do this again.

Now, there are two things that will probably happen when you do this. 

1. They may, indeed, convene a meeting to retrospectively authorise the work.

2. You will be removed from their Christmas card list.

You might also warn them that if they don’t convene a proper meeting and  do things properly, you might apply to NCAT to have them replaced by a compulsory appointment of a strata manager.  

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[Jimmy-T]

@Roland said:
After reading all the good advice here I was able to quote the legislation to the strata manager and on my 3rd attempt I was finally able to get a copy of the strata roll with names, address and in most cases email addresses. 

if it took you three goes to get the strata manager to do what is standard practice and clearly set out in strata law, then you can see where a lot of your problems start and end.

I would be looking closely at this person’s track record and not taking anything they say as gospel.

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[Jimmy-T]

In NSW, the minimum is one – but it’s still a valid point.  If at the last AGM the number was set at more than two an others either didn’t nominate or dropped off then there is a vacancy.  In that case, in the absence of other candidates, the remaining committee members are obliged to elect you for the remainder of the term.

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[Jimmy-T]

The wall between your units is common property.  That means not only that they have to fix it, but the lot owners have to allow them access to fix it. 

If the lot owners refuse, the strata committee can take them to NCAT to get orders compelling them to allow access.

If the strata committee or OC refuse to go to NCAT, you can go to NCAT and compel them to take action.

End of the day, the wall needs to be fixed and the lot owner has to allow it.  

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[Jimmy-T]

You are very fortunate that the dodgy by-laws have been found to be defective.  It really doesn’t matter what the chairman or his cronies want – there is a legally established formula for deciding theses things and procedures available at NCAT for forcing the committee to do the right thing if they choose not to.

In very simple terms, the people benefitting from the attic conversions have to pay the Owners Corporation  a sum roughly equivalent to the increase in value to their homes, minus the reasonable costs related to the conversions.

The same applies to the basement space being demanded in return.  Even if a majority decide to ignore this, it’s called a fraud against the minority and it can and should be reversed.

You need to get a neutral assessor (a real estate agent will do it) to work out the relative values.

If the self-interested owners upstairs refuse, tell them that not only will you take them to NCAT to force them to do the right thing, you will also insist that the Owners Corp charges them rent for the years that they have illegally been using the space.

  

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[Jimmy-T]

@Bunyip1 said:
Myself and 3 other owners have already lost 3.5 months of rent due to these works and possibly another month at least before we can rent our apartments out again. What is my recourse here for both financial losses?  

Send the owners corp a bill for the lost rent.  When they refuse to pay it, take them to your local court. It’s simply not fair that a minority of owners should suffer financially to benefit everyone.

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[Jimmy-T]

@Harriet2911 said:
They won’t make the list public, so how do I find out if any of the building in which I have invested is affected?

The secretaries and/or strata managers will know if the building has been identified for testing and what the initial tests revealed.  They should be your first point of contact.

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[Jimmy-T]

@LogicprObe said:
Driving around Sydney now, it’s starting to look like a third world country with all the washing on the balconies.

We’ll look even more Third World when rising tides and extreme weather events have done with us.

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[Jimmy-T]

Under section 2.18 (h) of the “Who’s Responsible …” memorandum, shower screens are specified as lot owners’ responsibility.

Put a motion to your next strata committee meeting or AGM that the OC should invoice the lot owner’s concerned for the provision of the shower screens, and that failure to pay should become a debt against their levies account.

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[Jimmy-T]

@Flame Tree said:
There are plenty of times where putting your name on a general notice is not appropriate nor mentioning private matters to others you hardly know.

This is not a “general note” and its whole purpose would be NOT to involve the committee.

At some point in our communities, we have to learn to just sort things out between ourselves and not feel we have to go running to “the strata” which often escalates minor issues to a level way beyond their actual significance.

In fact, the best thing Costa could do might be to give the neighbours a cheery wave – that would have most people closing their blinds … if they cared about how much their neighbours could see.

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[Jimmy-T]

Agreed. An anonymous note is almost never friendly.

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[Jimmy-T]

@proxaccess said:
Unlike in NSW, where apartment owners can pass by-laws to prevent apartments being let commercially on a short-term basis … Not true, nothing in NSW can be done to prevent short-term letting, especially not a building by-laws since nothing in the legislation allows owners corporations to prevent it … Not sure why you wrote that.  

I wrote it because it’s true and it was true even before the government announced the new legislation that will come in next year. 

Hundreds of apartment buildings in NSW have by-laws restricting short-term holiday lets.  Their legal right to have them was enshrined in a decision by the Privy Council, the highest court in the British Commonwealth, and the West Australian Court of Appeal.

Now, while having no direct bearing on NSW law, these decisions would certainly be considered as significant in any court hearing

The fact that one badly written by-law in one building was overturned by one NCAT Member is of no significance whatsoever (except to warn you to write your by-laws more circumspectly). NCAT decisions at that level don’t even create precedents for NCAT. But it is significant is that Airbnb and their mates in the NSW government clung on to that one tiny decision as if it was holy writ – a sign of how flimsy their case really was.

So, thus far, no one has successfully challenged a properly written short-term letting by-law in a proper court in NSW.  One has been challenged at the highest level in WA and the challenge failed.  This is how the law – even strata law – works. Laws are passed and they are tested in court. 

Lawyers and strata managers are still working out the best form of words for a by-law for when the new strata laws come in next year, but in the meantime, active owners corps who have valid by-laws are shutting down Airbnb and other STHL operations in their blocks.

So, again, to answer your question about why I wrote it, it was to put the facts out there and counter the constant propaganda stream from those entities that are happy to disrupt and destroy  our communities for their own profits, regardless of the consequences to the majority of people who thought they were buying a home, not a hotel. 

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[Jimmy-T]

@JWBB said:
It is your behaviour that requires modification here, not your neighbour’s.

You’d be surprised at how many people agree with Costa.  Nobody want to be, for instance, daydreaming when they are looking out of their own window, only to realise the person across the way thinks they are a Peeping Tom.

Perhaps Costa could send them a friendly note saying that he can see right into their kitchen and sometimes sees more than he would like … just so they know.

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[Jimmy-T]

This is a very interesting and relevant point.  If we have to put our postal addresses on the Strata Roll for other owners to see (and we do) and we are supposed to provide email addresses for the service of documents, I can’t think of one good reason for not making our email addresses available to all other owners.

Every so often in my block, someon forgets to put the B in front of the CC and we all get everyon’es email addresses. The smarter cookies sotore them away for such times as they want to get in touch with everyone without their message being filtered by the powers that be – and then all Hell breaks loose with someone on the strata committee screaming about “invasions of privacy”.

An email is not an invasion of privacy.  At worst, it’s an irritating piece of junk that briefly gets in the way when you are trying to find the message with the location of the meeting for which you are already 10 minutes late.

I would hope in the next review of strata law, email addresses on the strata roll will be mandatory.  Until then, all you can do is wait for the inevitable BCC screw-up.

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