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Frank
I take your point but I'm coming at this from a totally different direction. The cases you have mentioned both cite 'worst-case scenarios' – genuine possibilities but only in the most extreme circumstances.
The real benefit of these stories is to get people thinking and talking about their responsibilities – and I have to tell you there's not a lot of that going on in StrataLand. You would be astonished by how few people living in Strata – even members of ECs – have any idea at all about their rights and responsibilities. So these stories may seem a bit over the top but at least they get people talking.
There are plenty of other threads on this Forum that show residents of strata buildings are losing out because ECs see their only responsibility being to avoid spending money.
There's one running at the moment where the tenant of a flat has been told she can't have the problem of rainwater running through the electrics in her ceiling fixed because the OC doesn't have the money. That's tough – but they need to get the money … and fast!
The easiest way to do that is to not address problems. If they realise they have other priorities – and the cost could be higher if they ignore them – everyone might start thinking about the decisions they are making.
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Hmmm, I agree. Console yourself with the thought that the moron who stole it is currently trying to work out why his new iPhone doesn't get a signal.
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Have a look HERE and scroll down to “Am I entitled to a refund or other compensation?”
This document pretty much spells out your options. If you are still not sure call Fair trading on 13 32 20.
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You are absolutely on the money here. This is going to require a 75 percent vote in favour anyway so you have a lot of wriggle room in terms of nudging people towards doing the right thing.
I would be suggesting that the EC spends some money investigating the options and then comes up with a couple of alternatives, one of which will eventually be locked in as the preferred option through a vote at a General Meeting.
By the way, it’s vitally important that these changes are only approved on the basis that the individual owners have to repair and maintain them. One of the biggest costs in new apartments fitted with these increasingly popular sliding external metal blinds is maintaining the things as they don’t last too long before they get broken, bent, jammed or fall off their rails.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.
The key question here is, are you a volunteer? I reckon not for the simple reason that the work you do is to the benefit of a corporation of which you are a member. Is doing a few hours a week’s work for the executive committee (and thus saving on strata management fees) any different from doing a few hours work in your family’s business and thus saving on accountancy or shop assistant wages? It’s not the same as doing charity work which only benefits other people.
Sure, the voluntary work you do on your EC or around your building benefits your immediate community – but it also boosts the value of your home.
However, and we should heed Colin Grace’s advice not to panic, this only really applies when members of the executive committee have been warned that there may be a danger and decide to do nothing about it. There is no ‘innocent victim” in that scenario. If Executive Committee members give levies a higher priority than personal safety then they probably deserve what’s coming to them.
These laws are about an individual or collective decision to do nothing about a potential danger to life and limb. That’s called culpable negligence and all these new laws do is to make people live up to their responsibilities BEFORE an accident happens, rather than waiting until after someone is hurt or killed.
And one final point on whether or not you are a volunteer in terms of the clause you cite above – if all those regulations applied to executive committee members, why do we have Executive Committee insurance which covers EC members in case they make a mistake while acting in good faith?
As for a second opinin, both lawyers who’ve written about this on this Forum agree (to a great extent). But any others who have a differing view are welcome to chip in.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.
Whale said:
Don’t be too hard on me Jimmy!
I thought i was being supportive …albeit in a slightly nit-picking way.
People who imagine that those who are left to run things themselves (as you are) actually want that, have clearly never been cornered in a lift by someone spluttering in rage becasue a problem they haven’t told anyone about hasn’t been fixed.
My sympathies and support are 100pc with you. I actually think the bogus agenda item is a good idea. Honest!
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The honey-trap agenda motion is a tempting idea – but don't make it levies … don't know why but that just feels irresponsible.
Pets, parking and parties are the dog-whistle issues in strata. How about a motion allowing noisy parties on weekends to 2 am?
Or one banning cats but allowing dogs. Or vice versa.
Or a by-law introducing free-range parking on a first in, best-dressed basis.
Any other ideas for stirring up the natives?
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The CTTT are idiots. They should have told you need to take action directly against the Owners Corp – it's just cheaper if you take action against the landlord to force them to take the action against the Owners Corp.
But be clear on this: It's the Owners Corp who have to fix the ceiling and you can force them to do that.
So contact Fair Trading (Tel: 13 32 20) and tell them that you want to take action against the Owners Corp for failing to maintain Common Property. You are allowed to do this as, under the Strata Act, tenants are “interested parties”.
Or just get things rolling yourself and raise a claim for MEDIATION (download the form HERE). This action is against the OWNERS CORPORATION (not the landlord). It's the Owners Corp who have to fix the leak and you have the right to demand that they do. Mediation is an obligatory first step in the process, and only after that can you ask for an ADJUCATION (THIS form).
Once that is underway, you should take action against the landlord to get your rent reduced for failing to address essential repairs and to refund you the $75 it cost to raise a claim against the OC. The landlord's duty in this case was to make sure the Owners Corp repaired the ceiling. They failed so you can ask for a rent reduction backdated to the time you first complained.
The relevant information about claiming against the landlord is in this Tenants NSW fact sheets HERE
However, there is a way to short-cut this. Tell the Executive Committe and Strata Manager of the building what you plan to do and explain that they are going to have to do it anyway so they may as well save themselves the time and expense of fighting it – they WILL lose – and just get it done.
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You'll find info on the National Asbestos Register HERE.
The Work Health Safety legislation has been discussed at great length HERE.
Now, were you just checking (the 'search' option works very well on this Forum) or was there a specific question you wanted to ask?
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I'm reading your post and wondering what the Hell I meant. Was it not just the other day that I was talking bout the CTTT judging matters simply on whether or not a by-law has been broken and ECs being compelled to enforce the by-laws that they have?
And now I'm advocating 'felixibility”. I can understand your confusion and concern. At our recent AGM I had occasion to raise a point about a proposed (and necessary) by-law to formalise the restrictions in the building on whether or not you could install air conditioning. I pointed out (to much rolling of eyes and theatrical sighs) that the way it was worded meant that portable air conditioners and coolers were also about to be banned.
It was a simple fix – change one word – but this discussion has made me realise that flexibility can be dangerous while rules that are too prescriptive can also be too restrictive and in ways that were never intended.
And yet you'd like to find a happy medium where you could say that, strictly speaking, a by-law had been broken but, in fact, it didn't actually affect anyone. Hmmm. Already I can hear the thunder of hooves as the selfish and oafish lead the charge for the loophole.
I wonder if the answer is to give qualified permission. ie, we'll allow you to have your cat net provided you accept it's in breach of by-law X and no one complains. If someone complains, you'll get a notice to comply.
Is that too flexible?
Meanwhile, I'll mull over whether being a more moderate moderator is a good thing or not, and forgive Urban for Anglicising my surname.
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Have a look at what your by-laws say right now. If it says you can only have a pet with EC permission then I think the EC would have a very hard time convincing the CTTT that they were now denying you permission that you first requested a year ago.
I also think they need to tell the rentals manager to pull his head in. If he is purely in charge of the letting side of the building he has no right to approach you and tell you to do anything.
Unless your dog is causing any kind of a nuisance, I think you are on safe ground and you should just keep copies of the original communication you had with the EC and wait for them to come after you (if they ever do).
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ISTM – now called Strata Community Australia – has come a long way in the past few years, pulling a some rogue operators into line and refusing at least one major developer full Strata Manager accreditation, for obvious reasons. Admittedly, they were a long way behind the eight-ball to begin with but you have to give them credit for the improvements they have made.
I know it’s frustrating and I’m a great believer in shaking things up occasionally – certainly changing strata managers when you’re not happy should be an option (although I have known strata managers who’ve been sacked because they were doing their job too diligently) and that didn’t suit the EC of the time.
To be honest, I think the biggest problem with strata managers is that the good ones aren’t paid enough for the work they do, so they start spreading themselves too thinly over too many clients. But what happens when they raise their fees to reflect the amount of work they should be doing is that someone else slides in underneath and undercuts them.
If the Government demanded minimum standards but also set minimum fees, everybody would be better off.
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It doesn't matter if there's no money in the sinking fund, the Owners Corp has an absolute responsibility, without limit, to maintain and repair common property. That means if they don't have the money, they have to raise it – their finances certainly aren't your problem.
Also, your landlord has responsibilities to provide accommodation to a reasonable standard and this is something the landlord should have been chasing from the moment he or she was first notified of the problem.
Now, you can either tell the landlord this, or take action via Fair Trading to force the landlord to force the Owners Corp to fulfill their legal obligations. Meanwhile you should also ask for a rent reduction backdated to the time when you first notified them that there was a problem.
Maybe explaining that this is an option may be enough to get them to do something about it. But you do have grounds for asking for an early release from your tenancy agreement.
Go to tenants.org.au and have a look at some of the fact sheets there – they'll tell you everything you need to know.
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Look, Strata Cops sounds like the kind of madcap idea I might have proposed, albeit ironically and after the dangerous third glass of red at 2am (although it was BB who said I didn't like it – so I assumed it wasn't my idea).
The StrataCops couldn't possibly have the power to tell someone to relay their carpet and the real cops have the power to shut up the party-hearty 'dudes'. But I reckon the bigger problem is the selective enforcement of by-laws that we've discussed elsewhere and at great length. If ECs weren't allowed to just say 'this is an issue between two neighbours' and chuck problems (except their own) into the too-hard basket, everyone would soon learn they either had to behave or face consequences.
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I agree you are entitled to expect and even demand good service but you have to be realistic.
Do you condemn a company because one person in it isn't up to scratch? Do you rain plaudits on an otherwise rubbish operator because one middle manager knows what he or she is doing?
The larger and more widespread a company is, the broader and deeper the range of experience and skill is likely to be. The benefit of a big company, however, is that there are other people who can step in if things go pear-shaped.
Or am I completely nuts here and is Strata Management different from every other kind of large company on the planet?
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