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Let me step in here. If owners have received permission in the past for changes to common property, for them to have had any effect they would have had to have been registered as special resolution or exclusive use by-laws which would then have become part of the consolidated by-laws of the scheme.
In other words, if proper permission was given properly, the department of Lands would have a copy. If there were no by-laws or if they were never registered, and in the absence of any records to the contrary, permission was never officially given.
And i agree with Whale. we’ve run around these particular circles quite enough (especially since I find myself disagreeing with stuff I wrote earlier). This case is now closed.
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@kiwipaul said:
Fitting a tempering value would be considered an improvement requiring a SR.I guess we will have to agree to differ. Our EC, which is generally well-managed (give or take the odd despotic tendencies here and there) with a top notch strata manager, has been replacing lights in the garage with low energy tubes and fittings, while common areas like lift lobbies have had low-energy LED lights installed. That is both changing common property and improving it. As far as I know there has been no special resolution by-law passed, nor do I think one is required.The upgrade of our TV reception backbone occurred without an SRB.I apologise for attributing this to a Queensland quirk but I do think we need to ease back from nitpicking the letter of the law and look at how Owners Corps actually operate (and I include myself in that).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:
You could submit a motion to the OC to have a tempering valve fitted centrally by the OC but this would require a Special Resolution as it is considered an improvement (75% in favor).This does not apply in NSW.
Firstly, it’s a simple upgrade of existing infrastructure and secondly, while it could be a general item added in the agenda of a general meeting, it is probably well within the remit of a strata committee to organise something that is relatively low cost and to all owners’ benefit.
Even if they were overstepping their responsibilities, who’s going to stop them? They are, after all, merely bringing the infrastructure up to code.
The law may be different in Queensland but if every minor upgrade of common property requires a special resolution, the wheels of strata would grind even more slowly here than they already do.
I can see the committee taking this to a general meeting if it turned out to be expensive but they would not need a special resolution.
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Whale is 100 percent right (as usual).
However, some Owners Corps will agree to either remove the restriciton on spending for the next year or raise the limit. This happens more commonly in buildings that are undergoing repairs or upgrades where they know that work needs to be done and they know roiughly how much it may cost but they don’t know exactly how much till they start the work.
A good example might be where say, you have budgetted $10,000 for driveway repairs and $10,000 for lanscaping. The contactor might tell you you will get a better result if you spent $12K on the driveway and that would mean you only had to spend $5K on landscaping.
Do you really want the hassle of a general meeting for something that’s going to give a better result and cost you less?
It’s a power that must be used wisely – but it is very useful in the right hands.
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Whale is correct and apologies for the “selfies” comment. It was meant as a joke and then I allowed myself to be sidetracked by the “privacy” discussion.
If you and other owners are sufficiently concerned and intimidated, I suggest you get together and pay for a consultation with a strata lawyer.
However, individuals and groups can achieve a lot by working out what your areas of concerns are – and I mean crunching down to the most obvious cases of mismanagement and not getting involved in ti-for-tat “he did this so I want that” arguments. Then you have three clear avenues.
1. Go to the EC and/or strata manager and say what your concerns are (and why) and ask what they are going to do about it.
2. Go to the owners and ask the same question – they have the power to sack the whole EC and strata manager, if you get the numbers.
3. Go to Fair Trading and NCAT and ask for orders to rectify the situation – or even for the strata manager to be replaced.
But before you do anything, I would advise you to take the SCA’s online strata committee course (which is free) just to let you know what’s right and what’s wrong.
And have a look around this website – but be warned; it is the nature of the beast that we occasionally drift into “ifs and ands” “what-ifs” and other forms of Bush Lawyerism (and I am moere guilty than most). Stick to the facts and if you think you need legal advice, ask a specialised strata lawyer (not just your family solicitor).
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@daphne diaphanous said:
Would he be permitted? If not, even if he takes them, he wouldn’t be able to show them to anyone legally, which means no evidence.Who says he wouldn’t be able to show them to anyone? And who is going to stop him taking the picture?
First of all there is no general legal right to privacy in Australia (although there are right to privacy specified in certain laws).
For instance, you cannot record a conversation without the participants’ knowledge (NOT permission, a common misconception). You can record someone by waving a microphone under their nose, then if they don’t want to be recorded all they have to do is stop talking. The point is, they are aware that they are being recorded.
You can film or photograph anyone doing anything provided they are not engaged in private acts in private. There are some new laws related to video taping of a sexual nature but they would clearly not apply in this situation and whether or not a strata committee meeting room is a private place is moot.
But if there was a real danger that these people would claim the person was not at a meeting when they were, a selfie with the others in attendance in the background would be an innocent way of documenting the event … provided you didn’t record sound without their knowledge.
There might even be a by-law that says you aren’t allowed to tape or photograph meetingd. Even so, I can’t imagine any circumstances at Fair Trading or NCAT (formerly the CTTT) that a picture taken as proof of attendance at a meeting would be rejected as evidence because photography “wasn’t allowed”.
I think maybe we’ve all watched too many episodes of “The Good Wife”.
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@daphne diaphanous said:
JimmyT, while I agree with your advice, how would Mac prove he had attended the ECM, regardless of whether he had been allowed to address the high & mighty?
Selfies?
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The only time I have ever heard about an owner actually suing the EC _ rather than just threatening to – he lost $400,000 in a misguided defamation case. Having threatened legal action, he wouldn’t back down even when they didn’t blink.
Apparently it was very scary – the objects of his ire genuinely thought they might lose their homes – but there was this lovely moment in court:
Prosecuting Counsel (to defendant): “Have you ever used strong language when referring to my client.
Defendant: “I don’t know but I’m sure you are about to tell me that I have.”
PC: “Under what circumstances might you have written to your strata manager and said ‘f… him, bring it on’?”
Defendant: “I’m guessing that was when we found out he was only suing four of the nine EC members in the hope that our strata insurance wouldn’t kick in.”
PC: (Embarrassed cough) “No more questions, your honour.”
It’s a sad fact of life that justice in this country comes at a hefty price but that only means you can say “bring it on” to anyone except for very rich hobby litigants who don’t mind losing a few bucks.
But some miscreant nobody who is already on their way out of the building? Oh dear, poor little muffin wants to sue. How sad!
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I think you might find that many buildings with restrictive pet by-laws also forbid visitors from bringing pet – any pets – into the building.
I would bring the dog and lie about it’s height. Who’s measuring?
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@kiwipaul said:
Or get a different Sol to rewrite the bylaw making sure he doesn’t charge more than $500 for such a simple job and the Strata should pay for this because it covers all lots.Why would the Owners Corp pay for a by-law that only benefits a few owners? The trade-off here would be to get one by-law paid for by a group of owners. Agreeing to a catch-all by-law is the only contribution the majority of owners need to make. Expecting the OC to pay for a by-law that only benefits a minority is just putting another obstacle in the way of it being approved.
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Not sure about how things are in WA but everywhere else Unit Entitlements (UEs) are more closely allied to the intrinsic value of the property than just the size (which is, nonetheless, a contributing factor).
For instance, a much bigger apartment with no outlook might have the same Unit Entitlement as a smaller apartment with a view. It sounds like the same does apply in WA, judging by what THIS Landgate document says:
The Strata Titles Act 1985 as Amended defines unit entitlement as establishing the following:
a) The voting rights of a proprietor
b) The undivided share of each proprietor in the common property
c) The proportion payable by each proprietor of contributions levied under section 36 of the Strata Titles Act 1985 as Amended.Strata/Survey-Strata Plans show the relative proportion of each owner’s share in the scheme. This is called unit entitlement and is set by a Licensed Valuer. In a strata scheme, the unit entitlement of strata lots is calculated to take into account the capital value of buildings on strata lots as well as the land (whether it is common property or individually owned).
On the face of it, having the same UEs for different sized properties is not fair (unless they are more or less of the same value). However, changing it can be hard.
According to THIS webpage from a company called Lavan Legal, it can be done either by a unanimous vote – which you are unlikely to get if one person is paying a lot less in levies than they should – or you can apply to the State Administrative Tribunal. That requires a special resolution by the “Strata Company” as the body corporate is called in WA , which in WA requires a vote by in favour by 50 percent of owners, both in terms of lot numbers and UEs. The votes have to be at a properly constituted general meeting in person or by valid proxy.
To pass the special resolution, there should be no more that 25 percent of votes against and opponents have 28 days to get 25 percent of the votes required to reject the special resolution. The slight advantage you have at this stage is that if you are paying too much you also get a disproportionately high vote.
In any case, let’s look at the figures. Based on your levies, if they are calculated on equal shares and you re-calculated them on square metres, you would save the princely sum of $9 per quarter. Considering that even if you get the special resolution you will have to pay your share of the surveyor and legal costs, the only cost-effective way (in my opinion) of recalculating the levies on that basis is to get unanimous agreement. I must quickly add that experience strata lawyers might take a very different view so bear that in mind.
However that’s just on size – I may be wrong but believe the correct calculation is on value. If you are paying the same unit entitlements as a unit twice the value of yours because of its position in the building, then there is something seriously wrong and you should speak to an experienced strata lawyer about it. They may know another avenue whereby you can correct a seriously skewed set of UEs.
But bear in mind that the difference in a unit’s value may have a lot to do with its fit-out and finish – that has nothing to do with UEs.
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Muphry’s Law is the variation related to mistakes in newspapers.
Urbane was a deliberate mistake … but then I would say that.
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