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The NSW strata Act says the Chair must always chair the meeting if they are present. However, the Strata manager is also, technically, a back-up chairman and has the capacity to act as the chair in the Chairman’s absence or if they have recused themselves either because of a possible conflict of interest or a simply as not being particularly good at managing a roomful of people. In these circumstances, it’s customary for the chair to propose that the Strata Manager take over and for that to be voted on as a formality. However, if push comes to shove, the chairman or chairwoman has the legal right to chair the meeting.
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You can’t restrict access to parking for anyone who has a legitimate right to park in their own space.
A better motion would be to initiate a “Administration Charge” for issuing parking notices to any owners who park in visitor’s parking.
pass a by-law, put up a large sign that says any owners who park in visitors parking will receive warning notices leading to a Notice to Comply and a fines of up to $550 at the CTTT.
And underneath you put in big, bold letter “Warning Notices carry a mandatory $100 administration fee for each notice that is issued.”
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This is one of those areas where you can see somone is operating well outside their rights or responsibilities but you have to wonder if there’s any harm being done. If the self-appointed strata cop is issuing notices to comply off his own bat, they have no vlidity – but that doesn’t mean they won’t get the appropriate reaction and nip a problem in the bud.
If he (or she) is getting tradespeople to fix up Common Property and it goes wrong, then they could be liable for damaging common property because it is unauthorised work.
I would try to legitimise some of their activity by allowing them to go ahead and do what they are doing regards work, but only up to a certain value and to issue warning notices (not NTCs) for a limited number of infractions with a copy to the EC whenever they do so.
In both cases, there actions are not ‘permitted’ but – provided they aren’t victimising people or wasting money – you really don’t want to rein in someone who’s doing work that others shirk. Just read all the postings on this website about strata schemes where nothing gets done and you’ll see what I mean.
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If you are in a strata plan in Queensland where there is at least one shared wall (or two units in one block) building insurance is compulsory.
From what I can see, some insurance companies make flood cover compulsory while others allow an opt-out so compulsory flood insurance depends on who you insure with.
It sounds like the other owner has taken the glass-half-full approach and gone for the cheapest cover but I would be surprised if the insurance was actually effective given that one owner hasn’t agreed to it.
It’s interestng that someone has cited our sponsors CHU. I found this on their website: “Most policies meet the minimum legislative requirements but don’t necessarily provide owners with the additional protection that really counts.”
And that’s the key to this question – do you want proper insurance coverage or do you want to just tick the legal requirement box and hope nothing disastrous happens.
Paul2000’s friend needs to call the insurer up and tell them he hasn’t agreed to this deal and that he won’t until he’s had a chance to see what kind of cover they provide.
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A much simpler way to go about this may be to lease the property to the owner in a agreement that lasts for the life of the strata plan, then allow them exclusive use under a by-law.
The lease would reflect the enhanced value of the apartment and the increased proportion of unit entitlement that would otherwise have to be calculated and registered. It could also be linked either to CPI or to an agreed periodic valuatuon of properties in the whole building.
The by-law would shift responsibility for repairs etc to the owner. They would have security of tenure under this arrangement as exclusive use by-laws can only be rescinded with agreement by both parties.
All costs would be borne by the renovator and this method would allow everything to be done above board without the miles of red tape involved in doing it “properly”.
As ever, of course, someone at some point need to talk to strata lawyer.
special
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In NSW the quorum for an AGM is one quarter of the votes either in person or by proxy, in raw numbers or by the total of the Unit Entitlements.
So if the proxies were legitimate (provided on the correct documents) and everybody was up to date with their levies then this was well within the quorum limits and the meeting was legal. This is what the Act says:
There is a quorum for considering and voting on such a motion or at such an election only if:
(a) at least one-quarter of the number of persons entitled to vote on the motion or at the election is present, either personally or by duly appointed proxy, or
(b) at least one-quarter of the aggregate unit entitlement of the strata scheme is represented by the persons who are present and entitled to vote on the motion or at the election, either personally or by duly appointed proxy.
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Proxy farming or harvesting is where one owner, usually the chair, approaches a number of individuals and convinces them that their proxy vote is needed for the smooth running of the building. What they possibly don’t realise is that dozens of other owners are getting the same message and at the end of the day the Proxy Farmer has a stack of votes that they can use to block motions, promote their own preferences, elect their own choice of committee members, reduce the size of the committee to exclude opponents (aka ‘troublemakers’) and free themselves from financial restraints for the next year.
Another popular way of amassing votes is to use their position in the EC to launch a scare campaign claiming that without proxies, the AGM could be non-quorate which would be an economic disaster on a par with the Global Financial Crisis.
It’s a racing certainty that proxy farming will be banned in the current review of strata law in NSW, as it has in Queensland and S.A. where there are limits on the number of proxies individuals can hold plus, in the latter case, postal voting on specific issues.
It’s the strata equivalent of branch stacking and you can bet anyone who does it is probably up to no good.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.
Normally I’d say be very careful about not paying your full rent, regardless of the reason, but if your water supplier is Sydney Water you can pay the outstanding charges in lieu of rent.
According to the Tenants Union website receipts from Sydney Water count as rent receipts. A factsheet on utilities on the website also provides a form letter you can send to the agent called ‘Unpaid Sydney Water charges’.
Have a look on the TU website page on Utilities to get the full picture.
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Mediation is just the initial obligatory step before adjudication and perhaps a hearing.
At adjudication, each side presents their argument in writing. Whoever loses usually then asks for a tribunal hearing where you can present your case in person.
What you would be seeking is a CTTT order for your EC to obey the instruction of the Owners Corporation. In an extreme situation – such as the EC being seriously dysfunctional or just not running the strata scheme for the benefit of the majority of owners – you would ask for the compulsory appointment of a strata manager (although you have to find one in advance who is prepared to take on the role).
Proxy farming is a blight on strata in this state which is why it will soon be outlawed. But there’s nothing to stop you approaching owners directly and getting their proxies to hold a general meeting – proxies are extinguished automatically by a subsequent proxy – reverse the EC’s decision and, if you have the support, boot them out.
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Whale
You’re not just a “godsend type” – you’re a national treasure!
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I agree with Whale and ScotlandX (below – read them before you read this rant). There is very little privacy within an Owners Corporation. As an owner you are entitled to see every document produced by and for the Owners Corp or executive committee. The “commercial in confidence” concept doesn’t really apply in strata. As an owner you can go along to your strata manager and, for a fee, examine all EC files.
That’s why, increasingly, some ECs keep their real discussions “off the books”, one of the reasons I’m not keen on the Company analogy (although I can’t think of a better one).
I’m often asked to advise friends living in strata and in one building I know – with a very young, trendy and noticeably gay demographic – the EC is dominated by retired business people (RBPs) … not that there’s anything wrong with that. People with some business experience and plenty of time on their hands are often a godsend to strata buildings.
However, these particular RBPs have switched from running the building in a business-like manner to running it like a business and they think it’s perfectly reasonable to keep the share-holders (i.e. owners) in the dark about what’s really going on, have secret meetings to which other EC members aren’t privy and basically make up strata laws as they go – until some irritating “bush lawyer” has the temerity to put them right.
The bunch I’m thinking of seem to be living in a fantasy in which they are actually running a real corporations with profit and loss and share prices and homes are now referred to as “product”. They recently produced an entirely bogus “survey” in which they described the majority of owners as ‘heterosexual gays’ and ‘somewhat self-obsessed’. Needless to say, this was not for general distribution. The general thrust of the document was, I’m told, to create an entirely false “need” for a 25 percent reduction in levies which, since the finances are tightly controlled, means a 25 percent reduction in services.
Why do the RBPs want this? Because they are on fixed incomes and levies will go up just as prices do. So, to avoid this, they argue that property values are being depressed by excessive levies that aren’t offset by the attractions of the services provided.
Sounds feasible but how do we know? Well, we don’t. In fact, according to Australian Property Monitors figures, values in this particular building are currently out-performing the rest of the area by 25 percent. Apparently one RBP went ape-shit when an EC member tried to distribute this information to other EC members – yes, other EC members – and ordered them not to do so. No surprise, then, that owners are yet to receive the good news – just as they haven’t been told that their levies are the second-lowest of comparable buildings in the area.
This might all seem to be petty piddling politics but it’s sad to see a popular and largely well-managed building hurtle towards being undemocratic, elitist and run by fogies for fogies.
Pretty soon the RBPs will crank up their annual scare campaign about how expensive it would be if they had an AGM with no quorum (which has never been a remote possibility in this particular building, what with all the self-obsessed heterosexual gays wanting to know what’s going on) and use that as an excuse to hoover up an obscene number of proxy votes, currently running, I’m told, at about 30 percent of Unit Entitlements.
The realities of owner engagement (or lack thereof) being what they are, that means they will be able to select the EC of their choice, block any changes to by-laws they don’t like, promote their own agendas and remove restrictions on funds for their pet projects – which funnily enough mostly benefit other RBPs and don’t seem to have any effect on levies.
I’m reliably informed that this block’s AGM has disintegrated from a once-a-year talking shop to an all-spin, no-substance show-and-tell where the owners get shown the decisions they are about to make and told where to go if they don’t like them
So roll on the day when proxy farming is banned, EC office-bearers in large blocks have to undertake strata law training and every discussion, behind-the-scenes or at an EC meeting, has to be properly minuted and distributed to the owners and residents.
Oh, yes, and in the interests of democracy and fair play, autocratic attention-deprived RBPs should be locked up in common property stocks and pelted with bull manure for carrying boardroom bully-boy tactics into the EC arena.
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