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Purely by coincidence, I have just taken a job to write an information sheet for Owners Corps regarding the installation of electrical chargers for cars.
I won’t go into any more detail but two things occur.
[A comment I made here about “not plugging your car in like an electric kettle” turned out to be incorrect (See Peter C’s post #10 below) so I have edited it out.]
There are plenty of other ways they could control this and still allow people to charge their cars (and pay for the electricity they use).
My other point is that I read somewhere recently that a council with a high number of retirees in its area is now insisting that strata schemes have recharging points for electric scooters.
The world is changing …
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Strata Seal is a rubber stamp with the number of your strata plan on it. It’s usually kept by the strata manager (which may explain why you have never seen it …).
Not to be concused with Navy Seals, who are the USA’s elite special forces unit who, among other things, “got” Osama Bin Laden.
Oh, that we had Strata Seals like that!
Apropos of nothing, the phrase “signed, sealed and delivered” comes from affixing a seal in wax to a document. The seal was also often used to keep it closed until received by the appropriate person. “Sealed” in that phrase has nothing to do with enveloped that have been glued shut.
Anyway, here is a reference to seals from the Act:
Part 4 Seal of owners corporation
(1) If an owners corporation has only one owner, the seal of the owners corporation must be kept by the owner or by the strata managing agent of the owners corporation.
(2) If an owners corporation has 2 or more owners, the seal of the owners corporation must be kept:
(a) by an owner, or member of the executive committee, that the owners corporation determines is to keep the seal or, in the absence of a determination, by the secretary of the executive committee, or
(b) by the strata managing agent of the owners corporation.
(3) A strata managing agent is entitled to custody of the seal of an owners corporation only to permit the exercise of the strata managing agent’s functions.
(4) Section 50 (2) and (3) of the Interpretation Act 1987 do not apply to an owners corporation.
Note. Section 50 (1) (b) of the Interpretation Act 1987 provides that statutory corporations are to have a seal. Section 50 (2) and (3) of the Interpretation Act 1987 contain provisions relating to the keeping of the seal of a statutory corporation and the authentication of documents by a statutory corporation.
238 How should the seal of the owners corporation be affixed?
(1) If an owners corporation has only one owner or 2 owners, the seal of the owners corporation must not be affixed to any instrument or document except in the presence of the owner or owners or the strata managing agent of the owners corporation.
(2) If an owners corporation has more than 2 owners, the seal of the owners corporation must not be affixed to any instrument or document except in the presence of:
(a) 2 persons, being owners of lots or members of the executive committee, that the owners corporation determines for the purpose or, in the absence of a determination, the secretary and any other member of the executive committee, or
(b) the strata managing agent of the owners corporation.
(3) The strata managing agent must attest the fact and date of the affixing of the seal:
(a) by his or her signature, or
(b) if the strata managing agent is a corporation, by the signature of the president, chairperson or other principal officer of the corporation or by any member of staff of the corporation authorised to do so by the president, chairperson or other principal officer.
(4) A strata managing agent who has affixed the common seal of the owners corporation to any instrument or document is taken to have done so under the authority of a delegation from the owners corporation.
(5) Subsection (4) does not operate so as to enable a person to fraudulently obtain a benefit.
(6) A person is taken not to have fraudulently obtained a benefit from the operation of subsection (4) if the benefit was, without any fraud by the person, obtained before the seal was affixed.
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Hypothetically, the Owners Corp can enter a property to do repairs or even to to find out if work needs to be done and any owner who prevents them from doing so can be fined up to $220.
In reality, a stubborn owner can defer and delay this, with little comeback, through endless trips to Fair Trading and NCAT. The police will not help anOC to gain entry to your unit, even if it has an NCAT order allowing them to do so.
The two questions are – is it worth being fined $220 and why not just let them get on with it?
This is what the Act says
65 Can an owners corporation enter property in order to carry out work?
(1) An owners corporation may, by its agents, employees or contractors, enter on any part of the parcel for the purpose of carrying out the following work:
(a) work required to be carried out by the owners corporation in accordance with this Act (including work relating to window safety devices), (b) work required to be carried out by the owners corporation by a notice served on it by a public authority, (c) work required to be carried out by the owners corporation by an order under this Act.
(2) An owners corporation may, by its agents, employees or contractors, enter on any part of the parcel for the purpose of determining whether any work is required to be carried out by the owners corporation in accordance with this Act.
(3) In an emergency, the owners corporation may enter any part of the parcel for those purposes at any time.
(4) In a case that is not an emergency, the owners corporation, may enter any part of the parcel for those purposes with the consent of any occupier of that part of the parcel or, if the occupier does not consent, in accordance with an order of an Adjudicator under section 145.
(5) A person must not obstruct or hinder an owners corporation in the exercise of its functions under this section. Maximum penalty: 2 penalty units.
(6) An owners corporation is liable for any damage to a lot or any of its contents caused by or arising out of the carrying out of any work, or the exercise of a power of entry, referred to in this section unless the damage arose because the owners corporation was obstructed or hindered.
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@kiwipaul said:
Find out from your Strata insurance company if running a holiday let requires a premium to be paid for this to continue, if so the owner of the lot is fully liable for any insurance premium increase due to this activity.I can see the logic of this – nit them on the hop pocket nerve – but my fear would be that it would legitimise it.
I had friends recently who reneted a room in a two-bed flat in Darlinghurst, Sydney, for $200 a night. By the time they had been there three days, they had paid the host’s rent for the week. And insurance premium might not be enough to deter.
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@Stevecro said:
Jimmy I never said that you’re ‘wrong’. I am just giving my point of view that’s all.I was referring to an earlier discussion about EC agendas and how you can only make decisions on items that are listed on them. You were right, I was wrong, hence my reluctance to glove up and get into the ring again.
On the general discussion here, I am drawn to Peter C’s comment: ” … will the EC be praised for having got on with some beautification rather than endless talking about it, or will they be condemned by a loud pedant who says that buying a few pot plants for inside rather than outside should not be counted against the admin fund line item for ‘gardening’?”
In my estimation, 99 percent of strata schemes are non-compliant, admittedly in some small aspect of the law, 99 percent of the time. It doesn’t bother me when ECs, with the best intentions, go ahead and make decisions that stricly speaking, should be made at a general meeting.
If enough people are sufficiently upset, they can demand a general meeting, have the decision overturned and, while they’re at it, sack the executive committee and replace them with non-spending stratacrats and instruct them to pursue the hapless EC members for the cost of the decision they may not have been entitled to make.*
Otherwise, you wait for a year and make all your decisions at once.
Given that 99 percent of strata residents don’t read their EC minutes 99 percent of the time, I think any committee that just gets on with stuff is a good thing … provided it’s to the benefit of the whole community.
*Pursuing EC members for decisions made in good faith won’t fly anyway. You would have to prove they knew they weren’t entitled to make the decision and did so for some personal gain.
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Three things to check:
1. What do your by-laws say about short-term letting?
2. What is the council zoning for your building – e.g. is it permanent residential?
3. Do you have irrefutable evidence of what is going on and are other owners prepared to do what is necessary to stop it? Bear in mind, by the way, that some might think this is a great way to make money out of their units.
If short-term lets are banned by your by-laws, issue a Notice To Comply. Also, contact airBnb and tell them that this owner is in breach of THEIR rules and has misled them by ticking the box that says he has permission to let the flat. Ask them to take the listing down.
If council zoning forbids short term lets, contact them with a complaint and ask them to send a “cease and desist” letter to your neighbour.
If you have a majority of owners on side, pass a by-law to tighten up restrictions of short term lets and then pursue them with everything you’ve got.
Regardless of what agency they use, this short-term letting disease will only spread if you don’t snuff it out now, eventually your other owners will take the view “if you can’t beat them, join them”.
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You need to talk to an experienced and effective strata lawyer now. But remember, it will be your own money as the EC no longer exists.
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Having been proved wrong the last time I questioned advice from Stevecro, I am loathe to stick my head in the lion’s jaw again.
However, what section 65A says is:
(1) For the purpose of improving or enhancing the common property, an owners corporation … may take any of the following action, but only if a special resolution has first been passed at a general meeting of the owners corporation that specifically authorises the taking of the particular action proposed:
(a) add to the common property,
(b) alter the common property,
(c) erect a new structure on the common property.
Is the placing of planters “adding to common property” in the terms of the Act? If that is the case, it clearly states that a special resolution must first be passed.
Frankly, I would have thought a decision by the EC would have been enough unless the planters were a permanent structure that requires building work.
But then I have been wrong before. However, if I am right, a majority of owners at a subsequent general meeting can order them to rescind the decision and remove the planters.
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There is another route you can take. The by-law states that vehicles can only be parked “with permission” of the owners corporation. The OC in this case would initially be represented by the EC.
So put a motion up to your next EC meeting that they enforce the by-law byy voting whether or not to give permission to the bike owners by
a) Inviting written applications and
b) Deciding on those applications at a later date.You would also formally request that EC members with a vested interest abstain from the vote or that it be minuted that they had declined to do so.
If the EC refuses to enforce the by-laws, by this or any other means, you move forward to an application for an order under Section 138(a) “to settle a dispute or complaint about … an exercise of, or a failure to exercise, a function conferred or imposed by or under this Act or the by-laws in relation to a strata scheme.”
At the same meeting EC meeting, you put up a motion proposing that the EC investigates the provision of paid-for parking spots on common property – to be rented to draw income for the building, NOT to be sold – in areas that don’t obstruct traffic. This would definitely NOT require a redrawing of the strata plan as the property remains with the Owners Corp.
Again you would formally request that EC members with a vested interest abstain from the vote or that it be minuted that they had declined to do so.
It’s a carrot and stick approach that may just work. You are creating a problem (in their eyes) then providing a solution. Has to be worth a try and even if they don’t take action and don’t recuse themselves from the vote, you have more ammunition to take forward to the next stage to prove that they are acting out of self-interest rather than for the greater good of the community.
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@Matt said:Funny how they upgraded security on the swimming pool and the building, you now need a digital swipe tag to get access to the pool, and they replaced the old 1970’s gates with modern 2000’s glass fencing.
A wild guess but could it have been to make the pool compliant with new regulations, without which you and your neighbours wouldn’t be able to sell or lease your units? Just a thought …
To get back to your original question, I heard someone talking on the radio the other day about “solar landfill” – cheap units from overseas that can’t cope with Australian weather conditions. So I would tread carefully and get at least three quotes.
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@Ancestor said:
I am sorry to have to observe that my genuine questions have been met with condescension and now irrelevant suggestions of “conspiracy.”What you read as condescension is frustration at having answered your questions only to have them asked again in a slightly different way. Regarding references to conspiracy, this is what you said in your first post:
“Were strata managers justified in advising SPs to lodge claims against their developers and builders? It seems that some lawyers made a pretty penny lodging these claims at fees of $1000 or so a time.”
I am perfectly capable of reading the act and the many explanations of the amendments which legal firms have put on the internet. I have also read the speeches in the debate in the House of Assembly.
So why are you still asking the same questions?
What I wanted to know is just how much protection could have been gained by lodging a building claim by Jan 15 IF the building was already out of its warranty period, or close to that point.
If it was “almost” out of the claims period, then it was still in the claims period, even if by only one day. As in tennis, a ball that is 99 percent out is in. Obviously if the building was out of time already then the claim would fail – but i haven’t heard of anyone making a claim that was clearly out of time.
Also, you said in your earlier posts that being out of the claims period made no difference – owners corps could still take legal action. I quote: “… it was always open to the owners corporation to institute legal action against the builder or developer for defects not rectified.”
Have a look at this report on a decision by the High Court late last year that builders do not have a duty of care to apartment owners to rectify defects which are out of time for claims against developers.
Many owners corporations would have served lists of defects on their developers since their strata was registered. In many of these cases OCs and developers are working their way through the list, co-operatively.
So they have registered claims, if only by contacting the developers and telling them that they want their defects fixed. But many of those who haven’t, have missed the boat.
A survey by the UNSW found that 85 percent of new apartment blocks in NSW had building defects. What percentage do you imagine are working this out amicably and co-operatively with their developers?
The claims lodged by Jan 15 are in a different category – formal legal notices served on developers. In some cases to my knowledge this has ruptured good working relations between the parties which now have to communicate and negotiate everything through solicitors.
I know some of the biggest developers are keen to deal with defects amicably and sensibly because the value their reputations. They are also savvy enough to realise that owners making claims before the deadline were often just giving themselves some insurance in case things went pear-shaped.
Have you seen a contract of sale for a new apartment in a multi block scheme? They fill ringbinders to bursting.
By the way, I also know of other developers who unleash their heavy-hitting lawyers at the first hint of even an amicable defects claim.
Some developers even tell their owners corps that there are defects in the building because the law says (or said) that a claim must be made within six months of the owners being aware of their existence and the developer knows that many brand new owners corps won’t get round to it in time.
Small independent developers, especially, are notoriously lax when it comes to doing the right thing by their customers.
I pointed out that I could not find any statements – official or otherwise – made when the amendments were enacted, which advised stratas to lodge claims by Jan 15. It did seem to have been a well-kept secret. Just how many strata managers did advise their clients to lodge claims? How many took the advice?
Just because you were unaware of this, doesn’t mean it was “a well-kept secret.” I personally wrote several articles about this in the Sydney Morning Herald and there were many, many other attempts to bring this to the public’s attention. And I know personally members of several law firms who were working frantically to register claims before the curtain came down.
As far as official statements goes, the Government, naturally, presented the HBA changes as a good thing – claiming that defects law would be easier for owners to understand. But why do you imagine they didn’t tell the two-to-six year old buildings they’d better get their claims in pronto?
To get an idea of how extensive the publicity about this was, have a look under “More News” HERE or have a look at these links.
https://www.ocn.org.au/news/abc-702-changes-building-defects-laws
https://www.ocn.org.au/news/defective-argument-defects
https://www.ocn.org.au/news/too-late-defect-claims-brand-new-unit-blocks
I am a lot owner; I resent the lecture in your final paragraph and the insinuation that I am some pawn of developers. I suppose it was easier to sneer than to understand and answer my points.
What has being a lot owner to do with anything? Most of the people who come to this forum are or they wouldn’t be here.
I answered all of your points several times and you either didn’t understand or didn’t like the answer – and I didn’t sneer.
This was my final paragraph:
“If you are looking for a conspiracy, I would check the Government and the developers who are the major beneficiaries of a change in the the law that wipes out 90 percent of the defect claims in buildings 2 to 6 years old, not to mention all the new buildings where owners discover the clock has almost run down on their claims before they even get a chance to get a survey done.”
Where is the sneering? Where are the insinuations that you are a pawn of developers?
I am happy to try to explain things, several times, if need be. But if you are just going to insult me when you don’t get the answer you want, you should probably ask your questions in a forum that is more amenable to your point of view.
This topic is now closed.
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@Costa said:
My head hurts.Have a Bex and a lie down.
But seriously, so many ECs work on an ad hoc basis, just doing what needs to be done to get things done, that strict adherence to the laws is not a high priority. And so few people are prepared to give up thir time to serve on ECs that they are glad to grab anyone they can before they change their minds.
But if anyone is concerned that their EC isn’t following correct or acceptable procedure in these matters, just put a motion up at your next AGM setting out what you think the procedure should be, and if your fellow owners agree, that becomes the way things have to be done in the future.
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Yeah, best of luck with that. I tried to get our EC to put photo-electric solar panels on our roof to generate electricity, partly to heat our pool. Their response: “It would cost more to pump the water on to the roof where it would be heated than we would save in gas bills.” Geniuses, every one of them!
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@Ancestor said:
Thanks – I understand that. But I don’t see how lodging a claim listing the still-existing defects can entitle a strata to any greater benefits than it was entitled to previously, if for example the building was five, six or more years old. If it was out, or almost out of warranty under the old system it was always open to the owners corporation to institute legal action against the builder or developer for defects not rectified.As I explained, if the claims had not been made before the new law came into effect, “non-major” defects in buildings 2 to 6 years old would have been ruled out of time. Non-major defects are anything that needs fixing but doesn’t mean the building or part of it is uninhabitable (although water seals and fire safety were switched at the last minute into the “major” column).
If you are looking for a conspiracy, I would check the Government and the developers who are the major beneficiaries of a change in the the law that wipes out 90 percent of the defect claims in buildings 2 to 6 years old, not to mention all the new buildings where owners discover the clock has almost run down on their claims before they even get a chance to get a survey done.
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