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The problem isn’t that your funds are being used wrongly – to repair common property -it’s that they are being used unfairly to only benefit certain owners.
It sounds like you need to get your chair and secretary off the committee and, if need be, apply to NCAT for either their removal (if they manage to get themselves elected) or for the the statutory appointment of a strata manager.
There was a reason Fair Trading changes the name of the committee from executive to strata – and that was to stop people awarding themselves special privileges.
Communicate with as many other owners as you can before the AGM and let them know how they are being ripped off. If they don’t have the good sense to sack these self-interested committee members at the AGM then you may have to do it for them
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The simple answer is yes, under section 87 (below) you can seek orders at NCAT to reassign the Unit Entitlements.
The easiest way to do it is to get everyone to agree but, as you said, you can’t get turkeys to vote for Christmas, and the owners of the larger properties may disagree.
The next best thing is to get a majority of owners to make an application to NCAT as a body. This is possible, especially if six owners would be paying less and four paying more, and would certainly defray some of the expenses.
If that fails, you could seek orders yourself but add an additional request that the Owners Corp pays the costs.
Those costs will include a professional assessment by an experienced strata quantity surveyor, because it’s not just size, it’s aspect and amenity.
But clearly a large penthouse flat with a northerly view should be paying more in levies than a small ground floor flat permanently in the shade.
87 ORDERS VARYING CONTRIBUTIONS OR PAYMENT METHODS
(1) The Tribunal may, on application, make either or both of the following orders if the Tribunal considers that any amount levied or proposed to be levied by way of contributions is inadequate or excessive or that the manner of payment of contributions is unreasonable:
(a) an order for payment of contributions of a different amount,
(b) an order for payment of contributions in a different manner.
(2) An application for an order may be made by the lessor of a leasehold strata scheme, an owners corporation, an owner or a mortgagee in possession.
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Compromise is they key.
Most owners are guided by their tradies on how much access they’ll need (as well as how much noise they will make and when). The answer is usually always and all the time.
But it’s amazing what happens when the committee limits access to the lifts for the transportation of materials and waste to times when people are less likely to be coming and going from work.
Similarly, if they say noisy drilling will go on for X hours, you should be able to say, OK, let’s make that all happen in specific periods to give other residents a break.
In both cases, what was previously impossible suddenly becomes eminently achievable. Tradies are only concerned with getting work done at a tine that suits them. It doesn’t take much to tell them they can organise themselves to do it at times that suit all the residents.
By the way, I find it incredible that some buildings still allow noisy work to go on all day Saturday and on Sunday mornings. Save us from the hobby renovators, please!
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From the outside looking in, this is a complicated problem with a simple solution. If you can raise enough signatures to call for an EGM that you may have enough support for a change to the rules governing access and egress.
If you can’t you won’t.
Depending on the size of your block, I’d recommend a mail-out of stamped addressed, pr-printed postcards that owners only need to sign and post.
Just a simple statement on the card: “I request a general meeting be held to discuss the way we gain access to parking as the current situation is potentially dangerous.”
If you don’t get enough back, you’re not going to get the votes to change anything at the general meeting.
And, by the way, if there isn’t a by-law covering access to and egress from the the car park, you shouldn’t need one to change it.
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This is a weird one because the law says that people who were eligible for election who later become ineligible, must vacate their seat on the committee. However, it doesn’t say anything about committee members who were ineligible for nomination in the first place.
But let’s assume that they were only ineligible because of the way they were nominated – e.g. they would have been OK if someone else had nominated them – what’s going to happen?
My bet is that, if they are onside with the majority on the committee, they will resign and the committee will then co-opt them to fill the vacancy created by their resignation.
Now, you might be able to make a point by challenging the nominations and election – and you could probably take this to NCAT and get a result – but will you really achieve anything?
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I’m not a lawyer but it would appear from Subsection 6 that it would have to be votes of those present at the meeting in person or by virtue of a telephone or internet connection.
The only variation on this that I can think is if the absent owners had nominated others to be their representatives on the committee but that would have to be voted on and accepted by the committee before their votes were counted so, on the face of it, unless one of the absent members was on the other end of the phone, the nominations don’t count as a vote.
You might need a professional’s advice on this but I would think, on the face of it, that the votes were invalid and are certainly worth challenging (bearing in mind that the committee majority would only need to line up their absentee votes to re-elect the wrongly elected members).
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Looks like this is OK, according to Section 11 of the strata regulations (below) except that subsection 4 may apply – that the chair or secretary should have included the prior nominations in the notice of the meeting. If they did, that’s fine; even if they didn’t … I don’t think it’s grounds for a new election.
11 NOMINATIONS FOR OFFICERS OF STRATA COMMITTEE
(1) The written notice of the first meeting of a strata committee after the appointment of the committee is to include a call for nominations for chairperson, secretary and treasurer of the committee.
(2) Any person who is a member of the strata committee may nominate another member for election as any or all of chairperson, secretary or treasurer of the committee.
(3) The nomination is to be made by written notice given to the person convening the meeting that states the name of:
(a) the person nominated, and
(b) the person making the nomination and that the person nominated consents to the nomination.
(4) The person convening the meeting must include any prior nominations in the notice of the meeting at which the election is to take place. Notice of any subsequent nomination is to be given by the convenor at the meeting.
(5) A nomination may be made at any time before the election is held and may be made at the meeting.
(6) If a ballot for the election of a person as chairperson, secretary or treasurer of the committee is required, the election is to be conducted by a show of hands of persons at the meeting.
(7) Subclause (6) is subject to a resolution referred to in clause 14 (1) (a).
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“The Strata” has no meaning (except in your mind) unless you put another word after it. A lot of people coming to this forum are first-timers looking for advice in a confusing world. Many of them don’t know the difference between strata committee, strata manager, strata scheme, strata plan, owners corporation, building manager or rental agent.
It is therefore incumbent upon us regulars to be clear in our intentions.
And as for the poster who recently took the trouble to write “the strata (sorry Jimmy)”, requiring more keystrokes than just writing “manager”, I am speechless.
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Propose at your next committee meeting that, in order to ensure that all the requirements of the Act are satisfied, the committee adds a line for the name and lot number of the proposer to the bottom of the nomination form.
Plus you want a note added at the bottom of the form that says something like:
In the interest of ensuring all members are validly elected and to avoid disputes in the future, under Section 31 and 32 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, the following may not be elected to the committee:
1. An owner who was not financial at the time the meeting was announced who has not paid their levies in full before the start of the meeting. Cheques presented at the meeting are not acceptable.
2. A rental agent or building manager who operates in the strata scheme and who is not an owner.
3. A person connected by business or related to the developer unless they declare this to the meeting before the election.
4. More than one co-owner of a lot
Furthermore, the following restrictions on nominations apply:
a. A lot owner may not nominate more than one person, unless they are the owner of more than one lot.
b. The co-owner of a lot may not nominate themselves and must be nominated by another lot owner or by a co-owner who is not standing for election.
c. Subject to the restrictions above, a non-owner may be nominated provided the proposer is not standing for election.
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The “Who’s responsible” memorandum has come up fairly often in this forum (but I don’t recall many if any problems).
But here’s a way to do a quick check for previous mentions of this and any other specific issues.
1. Scroll to the top and type “Who’s responsible” in the search box.
2. Click on “advanced search”
3. Check the box marked “All forums”
4. Check the box marked “Match phrase”
5. Click on search.
That will take you to a list of every topic in which that phrase has been used.
If you don’t do the advanced search routine, the search will only be in the forum you are in and it will list every post that has either of the words “who’s” or “responsible” in them, resulting in too many irrelevant posts from too narrow a search.
Obviously you can use this for any word or phrase but try to be specific so as to filter out irrelevant results. Searching for the word “problem” will give you half of the entire 20,000 posts in the forum.
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@Cosmo said:
If the strata is hesitant to go to NCAT …The strata? Committee? Manager? Sphere? Caster?
Come on Cosmo, you have been posting here for a long time. You are better than this!
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