Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
Section 108 allows you to inspect a raft of documentation, including, specifically, current insurance contracts and last year’s financial records.
However, subsection (g) gives you access to: “any other record or document in the custody or under the control of the owners corporation.”
So the simple answer to all your questions is, if the Owners Corp or strata manager has the records on file, you are entitled to see them.
However, there is no law that I am aware of that requires Owners Corps or strata managers to retain voting slips. Proxy forms are different as they are “live” for a year or for two General Meetings so would have to be retained for at least that period.
Re your questions about what a calculations is called, you make the erroneous assumption that, apart from proxy forms, there is a set process with standardised forms for all Owners Corps. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In my building, they register the owners entitled to vote then everything is decided by a show of hands because the chairman and secretary generally hold 50 percent of the vote so the show of hands is exactly that – a show.
Strata managers and ECs will often cite privacy as a reason for not showing you records. 99.9 percent of the time this is bulldust. As a member of the Owners Corp you are entitled to see any document to which the Owners Corp is party or legitimately has on file. However, you may not be allowed to photocopy some of them for legitimate privacy reasons.
This is what section 108 says:
108 Inspection of records of owners corporation
(1) Who may inspect records?
An owner, mortgagee or covenant chargee of a lot, or a person authorised by the owner, mortgagee or covenant chargee, may request the owners corporation to allow an inspection to be carried out under this section.(2) Form of request
The request must be in writing and be accompanied by the fee prescribed by the regulations.(3) Items to be made available for inspection
The owners corporation must make the following items available for inspection by the person who makes the request or the person’s agent:(a) the strata roll,
(b) any records or documents required to be kept under Division 2,
(c) the plans, specifications, certificates, diagrams and other documents required to be delivered to the owners corporation at its first annual general meeting by the original owner or lessor,
(d) if in its custody or under its control, the certificate of title comprising the common property or, in the case of a leasehold strata scheme, the certificate of title for the lease of the common property,
(e) the last financial statements prepared,
(f) every current policy of insurance taken out by the owners corporation and the receipt for the premium last paid for each such policy,
(g) any other record or document in the custody or under the control of the owners corporation,
(h) if the duties of the owners corporation under this subsection have been delegated to a strata managing agent, such other records (including records of the strata managing agent) relating to the strata scheme as may be prescribed by the regulations,
(i) if a caretaker agreement is in force or has been entered into but has not yet commenced, a copy of the caretaker agreement.
Maximum penalty: 2 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.
Yeah, it’s not a strata thing – more a neighbour thing. A polite note would have gone a loong way to calming nerves … but maybe they were scared that some overzealous committee members might have put the kybosh on it
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.
What utter nonsense – sounds like lawyers making work for lawyers. Talk to an experienced STRATA lawyer about creating a by-law that covers all units and allows for all possible variations to be added as riders to the permission given.
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.
Wow. It’s 2015 and we still get this old chestnut?
OK, a tenant doesn’t get to vote (unless they have been made a proxy by the owner) but they can stioll raise issues about the running of their building if they affect them.
Fair Trading and the Tribunal consider tenants “interested parties” which means you have the right not just to complain but to take the Owners Corporation to Fair Trading and the Tribunal on a whole range of matters, if you believe they are not abiding by the strata Act or their own by-laws.
For instance, if a balustrade is loose and presents a danger and, as in these circumstances, the landlord isn’t approachable, then you can go to the authorities with an action requiring the Owners Corp to fulfill its duties and fix the common property.
Chapter 5 of the NSW Act lists all the matters that can be considered by the tribunal and who can raise them.
Having said all that, by faqr the best route to take is to approach the landlord and get them to deal with their strata committee. but if they’re not around, there are still plenty of avenues to explore. The issues that can be raised directly by tenants include:
- A dispute or complaint about an exercise of, or a failure to exercise, a function conferred or imposed by the Act or by-laws
- A dispute or complaint about the operation, administration or management of a strata scheme under the Act
- To require owners corporation to carry out window safety device functions
- To require the removal of animal wrongly kept on lot
- To allow a person to keep animal on lot
- To remove animal causing nuisance or hazard
- To terminate a nuisance, hazard or unreasonable nuisance caused by animal
- To refrain from breaching restriction on use of a utility lot
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.
I think there is a simpler way. You make an application to the EC to fill the empty seat and offer yourself as a candidate. If they refuse to even take a vote, they are failing to exercise their duties (the Act says they MUST fill the vacancy) and so you can warn them that you will commence proceedings under section 138 (below) to get an NCAT adjudicator to order them to do so.
Bear in mind, however, that faced with threats, they may then decide to elect anyone but you to the empty chair. So probably the best advice is the old chestnut, speak softly but carry a big stick.
138 General power of Adjudicator to make orders to settle disputes or rectify complaints
(1) An Adjudicator may make an order to settle a dispute or complaint about:
(a) 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, or
(b) the operation, administration or management of a strata scheme under this Act.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), an owners corporation or building management committee is taken to have failed to exercise a function if:
(a) it decides not to exercise the function, or
(b) application is made to it to exercise the function and it fails for 2 months after the making of the application to exercise the function in accordance with the application or to inform the applicant that it has decided not to exercise the function in accordance with the application.
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.
kiwipaul said
I’m sorry Whale but I disagree
It is irreverent whether the items are attached to common or lot property they are all covered by the insurance.
Fitted kitchens, bathrooms, wardrobes, internal doors & walls, electrical wiring, pipes are all lot property and all are covered by the Strata insurance policy.
The Strata insurance covers everything a normal household policy would cover plus all the shared facilities.
KP, I am struggling to make sense of your post and quoting a section of the Act relating to the insurance requirements for the whole building sheds no light, while contradicting yourself doesn’t help.
The intercom system will be part of common property unless there is a by-law to say otherwise. Electrical cabling to and including the internal fuse box will be the same.
And the word is “irrelevant” not irreverent.
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.
This has very little to so with strata and everything to do with a dog owner’s failure to control his animal. Lots of strata schemes don’t allow children to play on common property – would we even consider that if a toddler was mauled by a dog while chasing a ball across a communal space?
We seem to be blithely accepting the fact that the dog killed the cat on the basis of “dogs will be dogs”. The Companion Animals Act and local council by-laws would beg to differ.
For instance, in Sydney (and I suspect elsewhere) cats are legally free to roam wherever they want but dogs most certainly aren’t. Even if we accept the probability that neither the cat not the dog should have been on common property, that does not excuse the dog from mauling and killing the cat and the owner of the dog has to accept the responsibility for that.
If you read the relevant section of the Act below, you will see that the only excuse pertinent here is if the cat strayed on to the dog’s home territory. That was not the case here.
The fines for having a dog that attacks and/or kills a person or animal are substantial and in extreme cases (not this one) could result in jail terms. I say this to indicate that the law doesn’t treat the killing of cats as lightly as some correspondents here.
In my humble opinion, the owner of the dog should pay all the vet bills and count himself lucky that he is not also being fined and having the dog declared a dangerous animal.
Have a look at the relevant section of the Act (below). FYI, for the purposes of fines, a “penalty unit” is $110. So the maximum fine when an an ordinary dog (not designated dangerous) chases or attacks a person or another animal is $11,000. If the dog has already been declared dangerous, the maximum fine is $44,000.
The NSW Companion Animals Act(1) If a dog rushes at, attacks, bites, harasses or chases any person or animal (other than vermin), whether or not any injury is caused to the person or animal:
(a) the owner of the dog, or
(b) if the owner is not present at the time of the offence and another person who is of or above the age of 16 years is in charge of the dog at that time—that other person,
is guilty of an offence.
Maximum penalty:
(a) 100 penalty units except in the case of a dangerous, menacing or restricted dog, or
(b) 400 penalty units in the case of a dangerous, menacing or restricted dog.
(1AA) If a dog (other than a dangerous, menacing or restricted dog) rushes at, attacks, bites, harasses or chases any person or animal (other than vermin), whether or not any injury is caused to the person or animal:
(a) the owner of the dog is guilty of an offence if the incident occurs as a result of a reckless act or omission by the owner, or
(b) if the owner is not present at the time of the incident and another person who is of or above the age of 16 years is in charge of the dog at that time—that other person is guilty of an offence if the incident occurs as a result of a reckless act or omission by that other person.
Maximum penalty: 200 penalty units or imprisonment for 2 years, or both.
(1AB) If a dangerous, menacing or restricted dog rushes at, attacks, bites, harasses or chases any person or animal (other than vermin), whether or not any injury is caused to the person or animal:
(a) the owner of the dog is guilty of an offence if the incident occurs as a result of a reckless act or omission by the owner, or
(b) if the owner is not present at the time of the incident and another person who is of or above the age of 16 years is in charge of the dog at that time—that other person is guilty of an offence if the incident occurs as a result of a reckless act or omission by that other person.
Maximum penalty: 500 penalty units or imprisonment for 4 years, or both.
(1A) The owner of a dangerous dog, a menacing dog or a restricted dog is guilty of an offence if:
(a) the dog attacks or bites any person (whether or not any injury is caused to the person), and
(b) the incident occurs as a result of the owner’s failure to comply with any one or more of the requirements of section 51 or 56 (as the case requires) in relation to the dog.
Maximum penalty: 700 penalty units or imprisonment for 5 years, or both.
Note. Conviction for an offence under this subsection results in permanent disqualification from owning a dog or from being in charge of a dog in a public place. See section 23.
(2) It is not an offence under this section if the incident occurred:
(a) as a result of the dog being teased, mistreated, attacked or otherwise provoked, or
(b) as a result of the person or animal trespassing on the property on which the dog was being kept, or
(c) as a result of the dog acting in reasonable defence of a person or property, or
(d) in the course of lawful hunting, or
(e) in the course of the working of stock by the dog or the training of the dog in the working of stock.
(3) This section does not apply to a police dog or a corrective services dog.
(4) If, on the trial of a person charged with an offence against subsection (1AA) or (1AB) the trier of fact is not satisfied that the person committed the offence but is satisfied that the person committed an offence against subsection (1), the trier of fact may find the person not guilty of the offence charged but guilty of an offence against subsection (1), and the person is liable to punishment accordingly.
(5) For the purposes of this section, recklessness may also be established by proof of intention.
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.
Getting a statutory appointment strata manager is one of those “Be careful what you wish for” situations, not least because the strata manager has to do everything by the book and you have lost control of your owners corp.
Much better is to first find the strata manager who will take over, and then vote at your next AGM (or general meeting) to delegate all the powers of the EC to the strata manager.
That means that at any point in the future you can rescind the agreement, and you can still have your EC and the strata manager can consult with them as much or as little as you wish.
But when it comes to dealing with the nasties in the building, the EC steps back and lets the strata manager get on with it.
The first thing you need to do is identify the right strata manager and they will advise you on how to proceed, including getting rid of the incumbent.
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.
Also, check with your insurer – they should be told (or your strata insurance may be invalidated). If that causes your insurance premium to rise, and assuming you are in NSW, under section 77 of the Act, you can ask the business person to pay the extra premium and, if they refuse, you can seek an order at NCAT under section 149 (2) for a variation of their levies.
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.
Where are you? NSW?
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.
First of all, KiwiPaul was quoting by-laws which may not be the by-laws you have for your scheme and aren’t the current model by-laws for NSW.
The model by-laws that I pulled of the web this morning are slightly different (see below) but that is hardly the point. It’s the by-laws that are in place in your strata scheme that matter. Model by-laws may have changed since yours were adopted, but your scheme’s by-laws will only change if you and your neighbours change them.
So look at your own by-laws and what they say. If they say no one can park on common property ever, that that is the prevailing rule for your scheme. But FYI, here are the current model by-laws that will be adopted by most new strata schemes. Again, yours may be different and you will have to read them to discover how.
2 Vehicles
An owner or occupier of a lot must not park or stand any motor or other
vehicle on common property except with the prior written approval of
the owners corporation.
3 Obstruction of common property
An owner or occupier of a lot must not obstruct lawful use of common
property by any person except on a temporary and non-recurring basis.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.
Under Section 28 of the Act, an Owners Corp can delegate all its powers to a strata manager but can rescing those by an ordinary resolution at a general meeting
(ii) An owners corporation may, if authorised to do so by a resolution at a general meeting, revoke a delegation under this section.
If you also have an executive committee call for extraordinary general meeting (EGM).
If you don’t have an EC, get the signatures of 25 percent of owners (or owners who hold 25 percent of Unit Entitlements) and send them to the strata manager, calling for an EGM.
On the agenda, you want:
1. A decision to rescind the delegation of powers.
2. An election of an executive committee and office-bearers to take over the running of the strata scheme (if you don’t already have a committee in place).
If the strata manager refuses to comply with the request for the EGM, they are in breach of the Act and you can take them to Fair trading and NCAT to get an order against them.
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.
@1006 said:
What about if ” said arrangement ” for parking was done under general business at agm, not on agenda, then minutes confirmed next agm, so they are insisting they have written approval for parking on common property.Firstly, it would help a great deal if you would just tell us what the situation is, rather than feeding titbits every time we respond.
But to answer your question, a decision taken at an AGM as part of “General Business” has ZERO standing. You can’t have “general business” at a general meeting as every item discussed must be on the agenda so that owners have an opportunity to consider the issue before the meeting.
If the minutes were agreed at a subsequent AGM, that was done erroneously, because the decision should never have been made. As I have explained, the original decision was incompetent so any subsequent decision to approve it retrospectively would be invalid.
In short, there is no valid agreement unless there was a specific item on an agenda that was presented 14 days in advance as the Act requires.
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.
OK, the Owners Corp and/or the EC can give permission for common property to be used either temporarily (a licence, for want of a better term) or permanently (requiring a special resolution by-law including an agreement on ongoing maintenance as well as possibly a payment from the user to cover costs).
How you rescind this is by going back to the original formal agreement and reversing the decision. If this was done as an exclusive use special resolution by-law, you will need the beneficiary’s permission.
If it’s just a “licence” based on an EC motion, you overturn it at an EC meeting.
If the common property is a visitor parking space, for instance, permission should probably never have been given as you are most likely in breach of your Development Authority
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.
Some ECs are on to this kind of thing immediately as they can see the benefit to the whole building of keeping tabs on nearby developments, some say it’s none of their business and others determine their involvement on whether individual members of the EC will be affected.
The best-case scenario is that individual owners who will be affected should write to their council and the EC should also write in on behalf of the owners as a whole (on the casis that at least half the owners in most buildings don’t live their and have little idea what’s going on). Tha said, there is no compulsdion on the EC to do anything.
If your EC refuses to get involved, all owners can do is wait until the next AGM and vote them out for not having the best interests of the whole building at heart.
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.