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The “Who’s Responsible” memorandum, item 2.13(d) (below) says fans mounted in a false ceiling are owners corp responsibility.However, exhaust fans mounted inside the lot are owners responsibility, according to 2.14(d).
2.13 General – OC responsibility
d. Exhaust fans mounted within “Structural cubic space” e.g. communal ducting or a
false ceiling which is designed to carry communal pipes etc or outside the lot.2.14 General – Owners responsibility
d. Exhaust fans inside the lot.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.
Thanks for the reminder … I think starting your post “along the same lines …” may have confused people who would otherwise responded.
Forget about suing anyone for anything. Try to take the emotion out of the situation and identify how you have been disadvantaged by the decisions made by the committee and then ask that you be excluded from paying for any of the repairs.
When they refuse – as they almost certainly will – take the owners corp to NCAT seeking reparation that excludes you from paying the resultant special levies.
If you have evidence that the downstairs neighbour has changed the layout of their unit, report this to your local council as that would require planning permission, not to mention special resolution by-laws relating to common property.
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@MarkP said:
We have disconnected our two smoke alarms as they even went off when we opened the oven!!
Regarding the smoke alarms, it strikes me that yours are too sensitive and may actually have some dust or other foreign material in the device that makes them go off when they shouldn’t.
Perhaps the developer installed the wrong kind of smoke alarm – commercial rather than residential, because they are cheaper – but in any case, disconnecting them is not only dangerous, it is an offence.
If the smoke alarms are common property, ask to have them tested and if necessary replaced as they are clearly not fit for purpose.
If they are yours, change them for something more suitable.
Oh, and if your oven is setting off the smoke alarms it either needs a good, regular clean or it is past its use-by date and needs replaced
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Given that 50 per cent of apartments are tenanted, and therefore owned by investors, we’ll give these guys one free shot.
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@Ziggy said:
… can the Owners request that this SC member no longer serve on the SC?Section 238 of the Act (see below) allows NCAT to order that a committee member be removed from the committee or that an office-bearer be removed from office (or both).
The key elements in this would be that you can prove that the miscreant committee member has failed to comply with the Act, the regulations or the by-laws of the strata scheme, or has failed to exercise due care and diligence, or engaged in serious misconduct, while holding the office.
If you gather evidence of that (perhaps including letters from the previous SMs) and can get the support of at least one or two other owners, you could seek mediation at Fair Trading (compulsory) followed by orders. It may be that the person concerned might quit when they see that you are serious. But don’t issue empty threats in the hope that they cave in. Be prepared to go the whole way and have all your ducks lined up before you make the first move.
238 Orders relating to strata committee and officers
(1) The Tribunal may, on its own motion or on application by an interested person, make any of the following orders:
(a) an order removing a person from a strata committee,
(b) an order prohibiting a strata committee from determining a specified matter and requiring the matter to be determined by resolution of the owners corporation,
(c) an order removing one or more of the officers of an owners corporation from office and from the strata committee.
(2) Without limiting the grounds on which the Tribunal may order the removal from office of a person, the Tribunal may remove a person if it is satisfied that the person has:
(a) failed to comply with this Act or the regulations or the by-laws of the strata scheme, or
(b) failed to exercise due care and diligence, or engaged in serious misconduct, while holding the office.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.
@Ziggy said:
Thanks Lady P because I have been defamed by both my SC and my SM. I assumed they were protected, unlike me.Having been through this process (or seen it at very close quarters) I can assure you that there is no immunity but there is “qualified privilege”.
Basically, if in conducting its business committee has reason to be critical of an owner or resident’s actions, this may avoid being declared defamatory if the comments are not malicious and /or not generally broadcast or viewable by people who are not normally able to access discussions of the committee.
For instance, if your secretary writes something like “This resident is a known troublemaker and serial email pest who takes every opportunity to disrupt meetings with stupid questions and fake allegations of bad behaviour, and then wastes our time with ignorant and ill-informed emails, and it’s time we shut him up …” and puts that on a notice board or a website that is publicly accessible, that would possibly be defamatory because it is arguably malicious and goes beyond the normal management of the scheme.
If, however, the secretary wrote that the resident “has raised a number of issues in writing and in person at meetings, and dealing with those communications has disrupted the management of the building”, and those comments were available in the minutes which were not readily accessible to anyone who was not an owner in the building, then they would probably not be defamatory.
Having said that, I’m not a lawyer. Also, most issues like this would be somewhere on a scale between those extremes. However, defamation action is a game for people with deep pockets and plenty of time on their hands – and there is no guarantee of success.
That said, most strata insurances specifically exclude defamation as an insurable event, so if you have the time and the money and a watertight case, you might want to take a punt or at least issue a warning.
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What is a registered sex worker? Registered with whom? Or is this a registered business that just happens to be a sex worker.
In any case, a sign on the door that says something like “This foyer is monitored by video cameras. Please let us know by emailing this address or texting this number that you don’t want to appear on our “Visitors” Facebook page” might do the trick.
It’s a sad fact of apartment life that drug dealers and prostitutes like the security that unit blocks offer. However, prostitution isn’t illegal in most states (whereas drug dealing is).
By all means, install actual security cameras – not just to deter the sex workers’ clients. Apart from that, unless there was some tangible sign that this “sole operator” was doing any harm, I’d be tempted to just let it be.
Given that many people work from home these days, you might find the residential zoning isn’t that helpful
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$39 will get you this dash cam with motion activated “parked” mode. I have no idea about the quality of the product but if nothing else, it would allow you to put a sign on your car saying “this vehicle is now protected by video surveillance”.
Oh, and before everyone starts jumping up and down about privacy issues, there are none worth bothering about.
That said, you might want to ask your strata committee what they can do. A tyre that bursts causing an accident because the garage isn’t as secure as it should be could become an issue for them. A letter to all residents asking them to report suspicious behaviour might scare off your saboteurs.
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We have a long-standing tradition here at Flat Chat – we strongly discourage posters from cherry-picking parts of the Act that support their arguments and ignoring the bits that don’t.
The original question was whether an owner could remove their postal address from the strata roll and have it replaced with an email address.
Scotland X has now twice quoted the part of the Act that says the Strata Roll must contain the postal address of the owner (Section 178c).
There is no further discussion required and none will be permitted because we are here to help people’s understanding, not confuse them with bush lawyer arguments..
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@dustyrusty said:I like to think of the “law” in a transcending hierarchy (honoring some explicit stated exceptions, like parts of Corporations legislation not applying to OCs – which I think is stupid, but anyway).
> Just about every other Act (Civil/criminal) >> Strata Act >>> By-laws >>>> Contracts (e.g. Agent Instrument)
Que?
By the way, the section of the Act that you quote as defining a secretary’s “duty” actually uses the word “functions”. These are very different concepts, as you would discover if you ever tried to lead that argument in a court of law.
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@fredmertz said:
The council has advised me that the code at the time of the BA (1988) required a car wash bay in our complex and this is the area that has had the bollard installed in it so that no one can use. Wondering if anyone can tell me if it was legal for the body corporate to do this?The answer appears to be “no” – it was not legal and they are in breach of their DA. A lockable bollard with access given to any residents who wanted to use the car wash would be acceptable. Or a committee that was prepared to issue breach notices to illegal parkers, plus signs that said anyone parking there was liable to be fined and/or towed would be just as effective.
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Knickers and a t-shirt? That “going out” gear here in Kings Cross.
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@SaltyOne said:
It’s possible that UE corresponds to floor area, and that is the basis for the recalculation.It’s more likely that the UEs are more closely allied to the value of the apartments (which is only partly related to floor area).
This by-law is, in my opinion, harsh and oppressive and contains penalties – the inability to use the lifts – that the OC is not entitled to impose.
The strata manager clearly doesn’t have a clue about the fundamentals of strata law and that should be the starting point in any discussion
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If these by-laws were submitted before they were approved at your first AGM then they are invalid and would only have become valid if and when the owners approved them.
Apart from anything else, you have a strong case to take to NCAT to have them struck off.
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@BONNIE L said:
Hi, One option is to seek mediation at Fair Trading. Understand it is free.I would take the opposite tack. Offer to have the windows repairs. If they refuse let THEM take YOU to Fair Trading and NCAT. Same process but they are the ones who have to do the running around.
In any case, NCAT can’t order them not to ask for something.
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