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If there is nothing in the contract to that effect, I think you may be correct in saying that you can do the tax return – provided you are the elected treasurer.
Have a look at sections 23 and 24 of the Act (below) wich say nothing about tax returns but do define who can do what in regard to finances.
Also, ask your strata manager how much they plan to charge for organising their tax agent to do the returns. If it’s a small figure you may as well let it go.
23 What are the functions of the treasurer of an owners corporation?(1) The functions of a treasurer of an owners corporation include the following:
(a) to notify owners of any contributions levied in accordance with this Act,
(b) to receive, acknowledge, bank and account for any money paid to the owners corporation,
(c) to prepare any certificate applied for under Division 4 of Part 5 of Chapter 3,
(d) to keep the accounting records and prepare the financial statements.
(2) The treasurer of an owners corporation may delegate the exercise of any of the treasurer’s functions (other than this power of delegation) to another member of the executive committee if:
(a) the delegation is specifically approved by the executive committee of the owners corporation, and
(b) the executive committee specifically approves of the function being delegated to that member of the executive committee, and
(c) the delegation is subject to such limitations as to time or otherwise as the executive committee requires.
(3) While a delegate is acting in accordance with the terms of such a delegation, the delegate is taken to be the treasurer of the owners corporation.
(4) The executive committee of an owners corporation may, by a notice in writing served on the treasurer of the owners corporation, order the treasurer not to exercise any of the treasurer’s functions that are specified in the notice unless the treasurer does so jointly with another person so specified.
24 Who can exercise functions relating to the finances and accounts of the owners corporation?A person must not exercise any of the functions of an owners corporation or the treasurer of an owners corporation relating to the receipt or expenditure of, or the accounting for, money of the owners corporation or the keeping of the books of account of the owners corporation unless the person is:
(a) a member of the owners corporation or of the executive committee and the treasurer of the owners corporation or of the executive committee, or
(b) a strata managing agent who is empowered to exercise that function, or
(c) a person with whom the treasurer of the owners corporation is required by an order of the executive committee to exercise that function jointly, and who is enabling the treasurer to comply with the order, or
(d) a member of CPA Australia, or a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia, authorised by the owners corporation to exercise the function, or
(d1) a member of the Institute of Public Accountants authorised by the owners corporation to exercise the function, or
(e) during the initial period only—a person authorised by the original owner to exercise the function.
Maximum penalty: 5 penalty units.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.
@Erte said:
… the “catchment bucket” [rainhead? sorry, don’t know proper term] that would normally feed the water into the down pipe and into the drain has fallen off at some stage. So the water pours directly onto the path below …You need to get your strata committee to fix that as a matter of urgency.
I used to own a unit in a block where the neighbours didn’t properly repair their downpipe drain, the rain ran on to the concrete path and was then run off into the grass and soil near our side of the path.
Nobody cared or thought anything was amiss … until the whole of that corner of our building started to sink. The occasional concentration of water was enough to undermine the foundations at that spot. Admittedly ours was an old building that hadn’t been particularly well constructed but that’s not the way you want to find out.
Get your committee to fix it pronto.
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Just to echo what Tess said, if your scheme has a lot of problems that require a lot of attention, then you want an all-inclusive strata management contract.
But if you and your neighbours only contact them once a year around AGM time, you can go for a cheaper, small upfront fee contract with the fees loaded on to the Schedule B incidental charges.
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@GeorgeB said:
With no disrespect to any Strata Lawyer, when I asked the member why he can’t make a ruling on this he told me that one doesn’t exist and from what I gather they are avoiding making one.More to the point, they can’t make a ruling becasue at that level an NCAT ruling carries no weight, for instance, as a precedent.
Come on Jimmy, ok you may not know of a Supreme Court judge but with such a platform surely you can do more – why don’t you run a story on this in the AFR at least putting pressure on NCAT to act.
I might run a piece if a) it applied to a lot of people and b) if i understood what the problem was. Have you tried the Ombudsman?
May I suggest you approach the relevant Ministers and Premier and maybe flat-chat could launch on behalf of OC’s bullied by Strata Committees a #wetoo social media campaign.
You can suggest it, but I ain’t gonna do it. Flat Chat has been sticking up for bullied strata owners and tenants for the past 15 years and 22,000 posts. I stand by our record.
Seriously, I know you feel aggrieved and I sense that you have been screwed somewhere along the line but I genuinely have no idea what the problem is. If you could explain it in simple terms rather than making demands, we might be able to help.
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@Miranda said:
we in Vic have recently had this legislation passed … it means that only Landlord approval must be sought.I’m not sure that would have the effect you are suggesting in a Victorian strata scheme where, for instance, there is a rule (by-law) that doesn’t allow animals.
The Victorian model rules assume permission for animals but allow for them to be removed if they prove to be a nuisance. However, it seems to me that, just as in NSW, different schemes can pass their own rules provided they aren’t discriminatory or contradict or contravene other laws.
The Pet Are Welcome change seems to relate to rental properties only, in that the tenant only has to inform the landlord who can’t refuse unless they have a good reason for doing so.
I would think a rule banning or restricting pets in a strata building would be an acceptable reason for refusal.
The point I’m making is that this change in the law doesn’t change anything in apartments, except that landlords can’t refuse pets in blocks where owners are allowed to have them.
And to reiterate – I am totally in favour of people having well-behaved pets in apartments. But I respect the right of people to choose to live in buildings that don’t allow pets.
There are enough of both around for owners and tenants to have a pretty free choice.
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@Rosebank91220 said:
Subject to section 49(4) of the Act, an owner or occupier of a residential lot must not keep any animal on the lot of common property.The correct wording is “on the lot OR common property” not “of”.
The current wording of the by-law is below …
Some pedantic strata committee’ require a pets to be carried over common property, happy to be corrected …
These are not “pedantic committee” rules. Regardless of how pedantic they are, committees can’t pass by-laws – that requires a 75 percent vote of owners at a general meeting.
And if the rules or by-laws are in place, then there’s nothing “pedantic” about enforcing them. That’s just good management. If the by-law doesn’t suit the building then the owners should change it.
… however my understanding in NSW is that a strata organisation cannot unreasonably refuse to allow you to keep a pet!
No so. It’s only where the pet by-law in a specific scheme allows pets, subject to the permission of the owners (as represented by the committee), that permission may not be unreasonably refused.
That’s why a lot of schemes have brought in blanket “no pets” by-laws, as they are entitled to do, because that takes care of the “reasonable” test.
Now, if the owners haven’t changed that by-law then they have to provide a reasonable reason for any decision to refuse a pet – and “we have never had pets before” is not a good reason, it’s just a question of history.
But it is wrong to say that pets can’t be unreasonably refused in NSW – that only applies to schemes that have that contingency in their by-laws, and by-laws differ from scheme to scheme.
Schedule 2 by-laws for pre 1996 schemes (in 2016 Regs)
16 Keeping of animals(1) Subject to section 157 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, an owner or occupier of a lot must not, without the approval in writing of the owners corporation, keep any animal on the lot or the common property.
(2) The owners corporation must not unreasonably withhold its approval of the keeping of an animal on a lot or the common property.
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@Ever said:
Hello, I lived in our unit for 6 years. I now rent it out. I am still active on the owners corporation.When you say you are still “active on the owners corporation”, do you mean you are on the committee?
If so, then you shouldn’t be left out of communications and the easiest way to resolve that is to put a motion on the agenda of the next meeting that all committee members must be copied in on all committee communications.
If you aren’t on the committee it’s a bit tougher – non-members don’t normally see all the communications except by request – but you could do exactly the same thing.
Put a motion to the committee asking to be included in communications and then your nemesis will have to publicly justify why you should be excluded.
Even then, as a general principle, every owner is entitled to see every scrap of strata communications, if they so desire – although in many cases, that is done after the matter.
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@scotlandx said:
You are only required to have sprinkler systems if the building is over 25 metres in height. One fire alarm in a lot will comply usually.Fire alarm or smoke alarm? I assume you meant “smoke”. FYI we have two in our two-bedder. One in the hallway and one in the main bedroom.
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@scotlandx said:
I take it they are disturbing you, in which case the issue is why? Is the plumbing defective? Is the building not sufficiently insulated?I also wonder if a bathroom has been moved in an “informal” renovation. Normally if you were putting a bathroom over a bedroom, the sound insulation would be ramped up.
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@Ginny said:
… or as this is not the only issue with this Lot, go straight to NCAT for the appointment of a Strata Manager to take over and get the block fully compliant?I would go for a section 232.2 orders and during that process you could explain to your neighbours that they need to get themselves compliant or you will seek the appointment of a strata manager.
They (and you) really don’t want that to happen. Why?
1. For at least a year, possibly two, you and your neighbours will have ZERO input into the running of the scheme.
2. The strata manager is pretty much required to do everything strictly by the book so all those little things you have all been letting slide will have to be done, regardless of the expense.
3. Many strata managers will use their tried and trusted tradies for all the work needing done, regardless of the expense (because they aren’t paying the bills – you are)
4. Your neighbours will have learned nothing and when the statutory appointment is over, they will go back to doing things exactly as they are now.
It would be better to get a “strata audit” done and then everybody can sort themselves out when they know what they should be doing and why.
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I would think that to make that fly at NCAT, you would probably have to show that more than 50 percent of the building was in favour of pets – otherwise it would just be one owner saying everyone is marching out of step except them.
That could be shown by the vote for your by-law at the AGM, which is why you need to campaign hard, even though you know you’re going to lose.
All though I am strongly in favour of pets in buildings, I also believe that people have the right to choose to live in a building that doesn’t allow animals.
Think about it: those people could argue just as validly that a by-law that allowed pets discriminated against them.
Their argument would be that if you were hoping to have a pet some day, you should have bought into a block that already allowed them.
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In a building that age that has never had a fire safety inspection, I’m guessing that your neighbours live in mortal fear of the council coming round and issuing a fire ordinance order which could cost tens of thousands of dollars in sprinkler systems and whatnot.
But it sounds like you aren’t on anyone’s radar … yet.
You could start by insisting that everyone installs a smoke alarm in every room (required by law) or you could make yourself the most hated person in the building and call the council and ask for their opinion. Maybe you could use the threat of the latter to ensure the former.
Or you could just wait for the fire.
Tough call, but sooner or later someone has to start making grown-up decisions.
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Can I assume that the smoking by-law was defeated by smokers who want to be able to smoke outside their house but not have to leave the suburb to do so?
Get your Owners Corp to revisit the smoking by-law, this time by defining a “smoking area” where residents can go and smoke and not bother anyone else, under the terms of the Model By-Law 9 Option B (below).
If you need photographing evidence, get someone to take some pictures on a phone, perhaps while someone distracts them with a chat about the weather.
9 SMOKE PENETRATION
OPTION B
(1) An owner or occupier of a lot, and any invitee of the owner or occupier, must not smoke tobacco or any other substance on the common property, except:
(a) in an area designated as a smoking area by the owners corporation, or
(b) with the written approval of the owners corporation.
(2) A person who is permitted under this by-law to smoke tobacco or any other substance on common property must ensure that the smoke does not penetrate to any other lot.
(3) An owner or occupier of a lot must ensure that smoke caused by the smoking of tobacco or any other substance by the owner or occupier, or any invitee of the owner or occupier, on the lot does not penetrate to the common property or any other lot.
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