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There are two important considerations here.
- The strata manager is obliged to provide the strata roll to the committee secretary.
- Owners are entitled to see ALL documents relating to their strata scheme – including the strata roll, including contact email addresses and phone numbers if they have been provided.
Now, bad strata managers and committee chairs really don’t want you to see the strata roll because the last thing they want is for owners to be talking freely to each other. In my experience and from multiple reports, Netstrata are notorious in this regard, but they are far from the only miscreants.
But the law is clear on this. Whether or not you are on the committee you are entitled to see the strata roll in all its glory.
Your secretary should have a copy and they may allow you to see or copy it.
The strata manager may have refused to hand over the strata roll to the secretary, in which case they may be in breach of the law under Section181 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 No 50 – NSW Legislation which requires entities in possession of strata documents to hand them over to the owners corporation.
In my own experience – an in others reported to me – Netstrata and other strata managers get owners to agree to “full delegation” and then says that since they are acting as chair, secretary and treasurer, the OC is already in possession of the documents, so the legal requirements to hand over documents under Section 181 have been fulfilled.
If that’s the case, Sections 182 and 183 of the Act allows any owner to visit the strata manager’s office and view or copy all documents (with a few specific exceptions) for a specified fee. This as stated in the law, includes the strata roll. Section 177 of the Act says the strata roll must include:
(a) the name of the holder of the estate in fee simple in the lot (in the case of a freehold strata scheme) or the holder of the leasehold estate in the lot (in the case of a leasehold strata scheme),(b) an address for service of notices,(c) an Australian postal address, and an email address if the holder has one, if not provided as the address for service,(d) the name of the holder’s agent (if any) appointed in accordance with this Act and the agent’s address for service of notices,(e) information provided under a strata interest notice,(f) information provided under a tenancy notice.Now, if you are on the committee, you are entitled to ask, preferably in writing, why you have not been allowed to see the strata roll. It may be that the strata manager has refused to provide it and bamboozled your chair with the standard BS. Or it may be that they are in cahoots with the SM in not wanting owners to be communicating with each other. They may cite that old chestnut of “privacy” which is meaningless and irrelevant in this regard.Regardless of this, you have rights and if the SM or secretary are obstructive, you are entitled to ask why and to suggest to your fellow owners that it might be time for a change.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.
How long should these Minute Books have been kept? Is 7 years enough?
I would think records should be maintained for the life of the building. How else are you to know about discussions and decisions made ten years ago that still affect the management of the property today?
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…the door is open to make such a restriction provided the restriction is not harsh, unconscionable or oppressive (s 139).
Pretty much the point I made, myself. But what is “harsh, unconscionable or oppressive” in this context?
One suggestion would be to pass the by-law and let the affected parties (the Airbnb opportunists) take the committee to NCAT to establish whether it has legs or not when they are hit with Notices to Comply.
On reflection, that a ponderous route to get to a simple answer – just exposing another flaw in our much-vaunted strata laws.
Oh, and don’t bother asking the AG’s office what they think (they run NCAT) – they’ll tell you it’s a strata issue and refer you to Fair Trading, who will say they can’t make a ruling because it’s an NCAT decision and so on and so on.
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You had included all of Uberowner’s post as a quote. I have cut that back as otherwise we end up with the same material (which is still there in the original post) appearing over and over again.
No big deal but I’m just taking this opportunity to remind all Flatchatters to just hit reply most of the time or use “quote” on a highlighted section of the post if there is a specific point to which you wish to respond.
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The only information I could find on the Fair Trading website says this:
Owners corporations can choose to adopt the model by-laws with or without changes. They can also adopt their own unique by-laws, although there are restrictions on the types of by-laws owners corporations can adopt. For example, an owners corporation cannot adopt a by-law that is unjust or otherwise conflicts with strata or planning laws.
So, for instance, provided the apartment was NOT the owner’s principal place of residence, you probably could limit the periods during which it was available for holiday rentals. I’m not a lawyer but I would think that might be easiest effected by banning short-term rentals EXCEPT in non-peak periods.
However, if you have owners who only let their apartments for those peak periods, use the income to pay for an overseas holiday (so they can escape the noise etc), then spend the rest of the year at home, I don’t think there’s much you can do.
I’d be interested in hearing from people who ARE lawyers about how they think this could work. The “principal place of residence” free pass is farcical and means owners only have to be at home during the week then let their flats at weekends, or fly to cooler climes in the summer and let their homes while they are gone.
Principal place of resident means living there 183 nights a year. Too easy.
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If someone declares a conflict of interest, it should really be up to the others in the meeting to determine whether the conflicted person leaves the discussion.
That’s not what the law says – and for very good reason. If the person concerned has a forceful nature and the committee chair and strata manager are either in their pocket or just wishy-washy or easy-going, then the conflicted person can easily stay and sway the discussions to suit themselves, to the point of objectors staying silent.
Of course, this depends on what kind of meeting you are talking about Section 18 of Schedule 2 of the Act only applies to committee meetings and doesn’t use the term “conflict of interest” but “pecuniary interest”.
The online legal dictionary definition of “pecuniary” is that it refers to something paid or given in money, or a monetary interest in something. “For example, a person who owns stock in a company is said to have a pecuniary interest in the company, because his investment, loss, and gains can be measured in dollars,” it says. It goes on to define pecuniary as:
- relating to, or in the form of, money
- consisting of, given, or exacted in money, or in monetary payments.
So the question of whether or not someone voting in favour of their own proposed renovations is a conflict of interest is irrelevant in terms of NSW strata law (and probably a rabbit hole down which we should not have strayed).
However, if you have someone on the committee who will benefit financially from a decision, they must declare it or face a potential fine of $2200, and then they should leave the meeting and take no further part in those discussions. One example would be a builder who is pitching for the job or, dare I say it, an owner who wants a ban or Airbnbs lifted so they can rent out their flat.
This is what schedule S, Section 18 of the NSW Act says:
18 Disclosure of pecuniary interests(1) If—
(a) a member of a strata committee has a direct or indirect pecuniary interest in a matter being considered or about to be considered at a meeting, and
(b) the interest appears to raise a conflict with the proper performance of the member’s duties in relation to the consideration of the matter,
the member must, as soon as possible after the relevant facts have come to the member’s knowledge, disclose the nature of the interest at a meeting of the strata committee.
Maximum penalty—10 penalty units.(2) A disclosure by a member at a meeting of the strata committee that the member—
(a) is a member, or is in the employment, of a specified corporation or other body, or
(b) is a partner, or is in the employment, of a specified person, or
(c) has some other specified interest relating to a specified corporation or other body or to a specified person,
is a sufficient disclosure of the nature of the interest in any matter relating to that corporation or other body or to that person which may arise after the date of the disclosure and which is required to be disclosed under subclause (1).
(3) Particulars of any disclosure made under this clause must be recorded by the strata committee in a book kept for the purpose and that book must be open at all reasonable hours to inspection by any person on payment of the fee determined by the strata committee.
(4) After a member has disclosed the nature of an interest in any matter, the member must not—
(a) be present during any deliberation of the strata committee with respect to the matter, or
(b) take part in any decision of the strata committee with respect to the matter.
(5) (Repealed)
(6) A contravention of this clause does not invalidate any decision of the strata committee.
(7) Without limiting subclause (1), a person has an indirect pecuniary interest in a matter if a person connected with the person has a direct interest in the matter.
and
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All of the above from Kaindub is true. I was reading between different lines and assumed (I know… I know …I) that the correct procedures had been followed but the process delayed (references to a “separate NCAT dispute”, etc).
If NCAT has already ruled that the UEs should be altered, I think you have strong case to ask that the levies be changed too. If NCAT hasn’t made a definitive ruling on the new UEs ruling then, as Kaindub suggests, you are pretty much back at square one.
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Get thee unto Fair Trading for mediation, then to the Tribunal for a ruling that just because the decision hasn’t been “registered” doesn’t mean it’s not valid.
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To the extent that there’s nothing in the Act about this situation it clearly is.
Nothing in the Act in the ACT, to be fair. In NSW committee members must decare a COI then recuse themselves from discussing, being present during a discussion or voting on the conflicted issue.
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UberOwner, I think you can edit for a limited time after you post. This morning you have reposted with an edited version of your post (which I have left) then you posted twice with just the letter X, meaning I have had the hassle of deleting three of your posts. I respond to your Xs with a WTF?
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It would require the consent of all owners to such a proposal.
As you say, that would be unlikely if not impossible to achieve – why would the person who benefits from this inequality wnat to change? You can’t get turkeys to vote for Christmas.
However, there is a legal procedure but it would require presenting a compelling argument which would include surveying all the apartments – to which Mr Turkey would also object – and then hiring property lawyers to argue your case.
Then you would have to calculate to potential benefit versus the cost saving and most people would say it wasn’t worth the money or the hassle.
The only occasions on which I have heard of this being a cost-efficient exercise was where the developer had set the UEs for commercial premises on the ground floor at ludicrously low levels to attract purchasers. The inequity was so obvious that it was hard for the shop owners to argue against the case.
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Is it on your plan as an emergency exit gate, as described under fire safety regulations? If so, it must be able to be opened from the inside without needing a key?
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Have you been asked to remove your stuff? In which case, the key question is, is it a storage area for common property or is it for commonly shared use?
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I thought strata manger mismanagement because he not mentioned about at my own expenses and won’t provide quotation to me. He apparently did nothing since I require to repair it.
Two points, you would have to have had the device repaired anyway so the fact that the strata manager didn’t tell you it would cost is not a huge issue. Would you have decided not to have it repaired if you had known?
Also the fact that the SM’s appointed techie couldn’t do it is not really an issue unless the SM charged you for the first visit.
I’m inclined to think about the strata residents who can’t even get their strata managers to answer the phone. In fact, was it the strata manager or the building manager – two very different positions?
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