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OC’s costs preparing for and attending mediation and the tribunal, if the matter escalates, will be billed to her.
The OC can’t just award themselves tribunal costs like this. In fact, if it goes to a tribunal and the OC loses, all other owners will be liable for the costs except the objecting owner.
Perhaps this owner could write to the chair and ask them why they are misrepresenting the facts and strata law in this way, and suggest the building might be better with someone else in charge who actually listens and doesn’t try to mislead owners with BS interpretations of the law.
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This sounds like the committee did what it is expected to do, and made decisions about the management of common property. Now, that decision could be overturned by a vote at a general meeting, but I can’t see how it would have needed that level of approval to begin with.
Obviously, someone doesn’t like the garden being there, but they are going to have to come up with a better argument that a misrepresentation of strata law.
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The simple answer may be to put a motion to the committee that unknown renovations have taken place, inspection has been denied and the resulting work may require the current or any future owners to remediate and remove any work done to common property without the appropriate by-laws in place.
When you say “they are members,” I assume you mean one of the owners is a member of the committee, as they can’t have more than one member from one lot.
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he Management Company said they had no records as they were inolved with the building 20 years ago.
Is the word “not” missing here? As in “not involved”?
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Paint on the ceiling and walls is lot owner responsibility. The actual ceiling itself is OC responsibility. OC repairs the leak. Lot owner repaints the ceiling.
I think the rule is, or used to be, that the OC was only responsible for repairing and repainting the damage done while repairing the leak. E.g. if they had to cut a hole in your ceiling to fix the leak then they would have to repair and repaint the ceiling. Otherwise, the repaint was down to the lot owner. I know it doesn’t make much sense but that’s how it used to be and perhaps still is.
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It sounds like you’ve already raised this with the OC. Do you have their refusal in writing?
The timing on that is critical. If you get a rejection, or no response within two months, you can proceed to Fair Trading as outlined above. I suspect the relevant section of the Act would be S.232 (2) – for failure to fulfill their responsibilities (which you might mention in your letter).
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Not sure about QLD but in NSW you can table motions for consideration at the next general meeting and even if that happens to be one called for a different specific purpose, any outstanding motions should also be tabled then.
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I have already set up such a spreadsheet.
I know some very smart people for whom a spreadsheet might as well have been written in Klingon with an abacus interface. I would go with software that does all the work for you – after all, you may not be an officer of the strata committee forever.
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From ARNIE:
Kaindub’s suggestion is a wise one – it’s quicker, less costly, and leads to largely the same outcome (i.e. you can use the space to the exclusion of others).Our building, a block of nine in Sydney, has three different exclusive use by-laws, all for similar reasons – weird common area land that can only be used by one lot.
The procedure is relatively straightforward and provided you haven’t burned any bridges with your neighbours, they would have no reasonable grounds to object.
My starting point would be the strata managers. They’ll know what to do for your block and jurisdiction if they’re any good.
Good luck!
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the work could progress with the formula as follows; a valuation of a completed 2 bedroom apartment, minus the cost of the building work, with the residue of value to be split with 50% going to the body corporate for repairs etc. while I received a 50% discount on the money I paid to the BC for using my initiative.
And there’s your issue. The formula established in a Supreme Court ruling was that the owners corp would be compensated on the basis of A-(B+C) where A = the estimated value of the improved property; B = the estimated current value of the property and C = the cost of the improvements, including the legal paperwork and plans.
The benefit of your initiative would be accrued as the value of your property grew over time. The “crusty old solicitor” may have just been following established law and precedent.
I would go back to your committee with a renewed proposal based on the above principle but without the “initiative” reward. If they refuse, wait a year and try again under the new laws under which they would have to explain their decisions for refusal.
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OK, I believe that there are circumstances whereby owners can make payments related to common property on a different basis from simply everyone according to unit entitlements. This would operate where some owners can afford to pay the whole of the special levy up-front – and therefore avoid interest payments – but others can’t.
For instance, I know of a low-rise apartment block with multiple lifts where a few apartments don’t have or need lift access. In this block, only the apartments with lift access contribute to the lift maintenance fund.
To do this, it would require some legal instrument whereby some owners paid directly into a fund while others serviced the loan (which would also contribute to the fund). That fund would then pay for the work to be done.
It would be complicated but not impossible and, in fact, I can see the time coming when split special levies and loans will have to be offered for major works, so that owners who don’t have the money lying around to pay special levies aren’t forced to sell because of essential major works.
Now, I think it’s fair to say that the strata loan companies are not keen on this, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that the less they lend, the more money they make.
However, there are other considerations. There is the attraction of it all being a lot simpler for everyone if all owners are participating in the loan.
It also means that future purchasers are making a contribution (which they can calculate as part of the sales price) rather than getting a free kick from benefitting from payments made in advance.
Also, strata lenders say that when people are considering the difference between lumps sum payments of a special levy with loan repayments, they tend to forget the “opportunity” cost of paying the whole lot out of your bank account.
For instance, have they cleared all their credit cards, the interest on which is about double the interest on a strata loan? Are they going to sacrifice something they want or need – like a holiday or a kitchen refurb to pay the special levy.
And then there’s the amorphous issue of community and collective responsibility. Many strata schemes allow a discount on levies that are paid in advance, so that’s one way people who are cashed up can save.
Having said all that, I’d love to hear from any Flatchatters who have successfully split maintenance and repair costs between a special levy and a loan, and from strata professionals who have helped to organise it.
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It sounds like you are in a townhouse. Is the roof covering other units (in which case it’s almost certainly common property) or is it solely for your home, in which case it may well be your responsibility.
So that’s a question only you and your strata manager or conveyancer/solicitor can answer. Is the roof common property or not? If it is, then the Body Corporate is most likely responsible for repairs unless there’s a by-law that says otherwise.
NB: For those of you who don’t know what roof sarking is, it’s a water-resistant membrane installed under your roof tiles. It acts as a protective barrier, preventing moisture from seeping into your roof cavity and home interior while allowing moisture in the air to escape.
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Lot owner is saying that because the engineer said their bedroom wall crack (internal wall) correlates to the one in the stairwell (common property), then that constitutes an overall common property repair, so even her internal wall gets classified as common property and she is not accountable for costs associated with installation of expansion joint, patching and painting for her internal wall. Does that sound right…?
An “internal” wall that adjoins another lot or common property IS common property. A majority of owners at a general meeting can demand three quotes (or however many you want). Get the signatures for an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) with that on the agenda. If you can’t get enough signatures (25 per cent of UEs) then you probably don’t have the support to get the additional quotes anyway.
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Have a look at our sponsors Stratabox.com.au which has an interface which tracks proposed and actual expenditure in an easy-to-understand format
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