[Jimmy-T]

@kezza111 said:
I am now writing to the other Strata Company and fingers cross hoping they will offer their Management Services to our self managed scheme.

So … you are self-managed but want a strata manager.  Maybe the rish versus the income just didn’t add up.  Why not check out our chums at Stratabox.com.au and see if they might offer a solution that will keep you afloat 

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[Jimmy-T]

This sounds like either a rort by the strata managers to milk extra funds out of owners or a dubious strategy by owners to discourage other owners from undertaking major renovations.

Either way, I would be challenging the charges by asking where in your by-laws or the management contracts does it allow owners to be charged these amounts and on what grounds? 

And once you had that information, I would be challenging their validity at Fair Trading and/or NCAT

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[Jimmy-T]

Firstly, get yourself a good specialist strata lawyer before you do anything else.

Then there are two avenues that spring to mind.  The first is council planning.  If they got permission for a two-bedroom and built a three-bedder, then they are in breach of their planning permission (assuming they got a DA).  Take it to council and let them deal with it.

The other is a clear breach of the by-law. I would hit them with a Notice To Comply, in the first instance, then take them to NCAT for fines and then back again for orders when they have (probably) failed to remedy the issue.

Make sure that you also ask for legal costs to be apportioned to them in any hearing so that you can add that to their levies.

You need to act on this as a matter of urgency before chummy sells the property and you then have to do everything through another layer of confusion.

I have no sympathy for people in strata who take advantage of their neighbours’ better natures and then just lie to them and expect to get away with it. 

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[Jimmy-T]

The strata manager can’t re-appoint themselves.  However it is commonplace for strata managers to ask for a re-appointment and be granted it on the grounds that the strata scheme isn’t ready to run its own affairs.

Be warned that your weight of evidence might be more likely to confirm the reappointment than persuade the tribunal otherwise – unless you can prove that the strata manager hasn’t done their job properly.

And, to answer your question, no you don’t need to provide your evidence in advance as there is no longer a paper assessment of a case before a hearing.

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[Jimmy-T]

@BONNIE L said:
In my experience, only the lot owner is entitled to vote. 

The proxy can vote unless the lot owner votes in person, thereby negating the proxy. This can be done on an item by item basis.

The situation described above, where the lot owner attends but her proxy does the voting is frankly bizarre.  Presumably the owner thinks she needs to give her sister a proxy to allow her to speak.

There is nothing wrong with people taking proxies along to speak on their behalf, if they are nervous about speaking in public, or to advise them on points of strata law (for instance).

But taking along a non-owner to add their voice to the owner’s and dominate meetings is pretty poor form – and I think it could be fixed by having the Owners Corp adopt standing orders like those I suggested above.

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[Jimmy-T]

I am not aware of any hard and fast rule about proxies speaking at general meetings but you could resolve this by adopting a set of standing orders that clarifies this.

As we have discussed elsewhere on this forum, having an agreed set of rules for your meetings – both committee and AGMs – makes it a lot easier for the chair to maintain order, identify disruptive elements and hopefully curb their intrusions.

I’m going to post rules I recommend below but these are in no way prescriptive and you may wish to add change or remove any of them to suit your circumstances.

Then you could make the adoption of the standing orders your first item of business on the agenda then run the meeting accordingly.

If this person has been disruptive in the past I’m sure other owners will support your efforts to bring some order to proceedings.  Anyway, have a look at the proposal below and see if it would do the trick for you (and change it if it wouldn’t).

Standing Orders for General Meetings of Strata Scheme (No…..)

1. The meeting will be governed by the terms of Schedule 1 of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 and relevant regulations.*
2. The meeting must be chaired by the elected chairperson unless they are absent or unable to do so, in which case those in attendance and entitled to vote must elect a chair for the duration of that meeting.*
3. Owners who wish to be represented by a proxy at the meeting must nominate that proxy in writing before the start of the meeting or as soon as possible thereafter.
4. In the interest of fair hearing for all owners, owners represented by a nominated proxy may not also speak on issues if they have nominated a proxy to speak on their behalf.  Only one speaker is allowed per lot and the chair may rule additional speakers out of order.
5. The chair should make it clear to non-owner proxies that they are bound by the Standing Orders.
6. The committee will consider the items on the agenda in the order in which they appear unless a majority of the committee agrees to change the order at the meeting.
7. The Chairperson will allow each owner or their nominated proxy to speak only once on a topic until everyone who wants to speak has had a chance to do so. The same restriction will apply after each time an attendee speaks.
8. Attendees and members who interrupt, talk out of turn or talk over other members may be warned verbally that their behaviour is not acceptable.
9. If the interruptions and disruptive behaviour is repeated despite a warning, the chairman may declare that they will ‘name’ the miscreant in the minutes of the meeting.
10. The meeting will be called to a close after the final item on the agenda has been discussed and voted upon.
11. There is no “any other business”. Any items not on the agenda can only be discussed informally after the end of the meeting and no vote should be taken or recorded.*

*Items 1, 2 and 11 are part of NSW strata laws or regulations.

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[Jimmy-T]

Firstly, those links (above) are really interesting and should serve as a warning to anyone in a “hot” holiday letting area as to what will happen in your building if the state government gives in to pressure to open our blocks to online holiday letting agencies.

I’m not surprised at the Qld approach, as its strata schemes were set up as holiday lets primarily and full-time residential accommodation as an afterthought.

I spoke recently to Gary Bugden who helped to formulate the Qld strata regs all those years ago and he told me he presented the government with a two-strand model.  One options was for holiday letting with caretaker management contracts sold prior to occupancy and the other was more like the NSW model with owners able to choose who managed their buildings once they had set up their owners corps.

Apparently Queensland developers choked on the mangoes when they heard the second option and saw it would cost them revenue so they told the government it was too complicated to have two models running in parallel which is why Qld has the fundamentally corrupted system that it is now trying to find a way out of.

The pre-sale of management rights in Qld is an indelible stain on the strata system there and, by the way, Strata Community Australia should be ashamed of their vocal support for it.

Do I exaggerate?  Consider this – one of the biggest operators of unit block management rights in SE Queensland is the same company that runs schoolies weeks on the Gold Coast.  Need I say more?

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[Jimmy-T]

@Lotsofstairs said:
Done to death?  From a committee member’s point of view I think not.
  

I was referring to the discussion about what kind of by-law you could have to limit short-stay letting and what could be done to enforce it.

It’s a complicated question, for sure, but the answers are simple because their scope is limited by the law.

You can pass a by-law supporting your “residential only” zoning but any by-law you pass beyond that will have no standing because of the section 139 (2) restrictions: “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.”

That’s why a by-law saying you will enforce local zoning is valid but one saying anything more (or less) than that probably isn’t.

As explained above, a by-law will be accepted by most residents (whether it is valid or not) and ignored by some – until they get a Notice To Comply.

But there will always be others who, for whatever reason, feel they shouldn’t have to comply with the by-law and they are the ones you take to NCAT for a fine. That’s when your by-law gets tested.

So it’s not really ambiguous at all.  If you accept the intent of section 132 (2) and its recent confirmation in the Fair Trading handbook, it’s crystal clear.

Schemes that want some sort of half measure will have to wait for the state government to decide whether it wants homes or holiday hotels in our apartment blocks – and their position document could be tabled any day now.

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[Jimmy-T]

Can I just clarify – is it a dividing fence between two lots in the same scheme?

And if so, is it shown on the plan as a solid line or a dotted line?

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[Jimmy-T]

Let’s not forget, under the new laws, if you don’t have a quorum at the designated start of your AGM all you do is wait half an hour and then those present are deemed to constitute a quorum.  But owners who are not financial can’t vote or propose anyone for election (although they can be elected themselves if another financial owner proposes them).

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[Jimmy-T]

Ha!  That would require an agreement to a coin-toss.

Section 232 (1)(a) allows an NCAT adjudicator to make a ruling on a dispute related to a function of the Act.

My reading of the Act is that this would probably come under Section 111 – major renovations – because, although changing the fence is actually a minor renovation (section 110), technically it may come under major renovation rules requiring a special resolution by-law, because it affects the external appearance of the scheme.

Interestingly, if I am right, replacing the fence with like for like would be a simple process that wouldn’t require approval while changing its appearance would require a 75 percent vote.

Anyway, that gives you your avenue for an NCAT decision, but I would put money on them saying “no change” simply because the owner in favour of change doesn’t have the required votes.

There is probably also a by-law requiring owners to maintain the appearance of their lot.  You could use that to drive the issue to NCAT and get a definitive result.

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[Jimmy-T]

I never said you were loathsome – just that I loathe long and complicated observations about endlessly hair-splitting legalistic observations regarding hypothetical arguments that are of little consequence to the vast majority of readers.

I’m sure you are very nice in your own way. And that’s all, folks!

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[Jimmy-T]

Doesn’t sound like asbestos.  Next question – is it safety glass?

Or cut to the chase: why do we need new doors?

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[Jimmy-T]

One of the most common reasons for common property doors being replaced in older buildings is that the old ones have asbestos in them.  

That would be my first line of inquiry – and I can understand why a committee might decide to keep that quiet while getting on with replacing them.

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[Jimmy-T]

@ggf said:
Motions submitted prior to Nov 30 2016 did not require an explanation and so it would be inappropriate to be retrospectively applying the new laws to those motions.

This material following the above statement is a perfect example of the kind of  bush-lawyerism that I loathe (and I have only left it up as an example pour encouragez les autres).

In the real world of strata committees and AGMs, the general process is so imprecise that this kind of legalistic hair-splitting is almost irrelevant.

FYI: The case quoted is a classic of two rich parties each trying to impose their will on the other and led to the ridiculous situation where one side won their argument at NCAT while, at the same time, the other side successfully argued to have a strata manager installed because the other side kept taking them to the Tribunal.

No more, please.  There are other websites that will indulge your Rumpolian tendencies.  Here in the real world we are trying to help people deal with actual problems and provide realistic outcomes.

Lady P’s first response was all that was required.  End of story.

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