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And why has NSW govt stopped updating and publishing this?
My guess?
- It was out of date before it got into people’s hands
- It was expensive to produce and distribute
- Nobody read it anyway
- Their websites and factsheets can be updated relatively easily
- Those websites can carry links to further information and forms
- People are still referencing editions that are well out of date as if they were the Bible.
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I suggested another meeting to ratify the previous decisions purely as a way of getting the message out that asking for everything to be strictly legal comes with consequences, preferably financial.
Following on from your other posts, I has taken me 20 years to realise that strata law isn’t law at all; it’s a set of guidelines based on the participants “best endeavours”.
Just look at the regs on who can and can’t vote at committee meetings. In fact, most procedural rules for strata meetings don’t bear close scrutiny.
What happens if someone doesn’t declare a conflict of interest and votes in favour of something that’s to their advantage? Nothing? Is the decision automatically invalid? Nope. Is the conflicted member penalised in any way? Nuh! Is the whole meeting declared a wash because it was conducted under false premises? Are you crazy?
I can’t help thinking of the tenants who were cleared by the Tribunal of breaching a Notice to Comply with a by-law because they said they were unaware of it, despite the fact that they had signed their lease saying they had read the by-laws and the Notice To Comply had the by-law reproduced on it, as the law demands.
The real problem is that the Tribunal is run by the Attorney-General’s Department and the laws are set by Fair Trading, and never the twain shall meet. Even today, if you ask the A-G’s department about a strata issue in relation to the Tribunal, they say “talk to Fair Trading”. Ask the same question of Fair Trading and they say talk to the A-G department.
The only positive thought in all this is that most strata owners and residents haven’t worked out that they can do pretty much what they want and no-one can do much about it.
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These people are impossible to reason with so in need something more than just “tell them this”.
No advice on what to say? That’s a hard ask. Do you want us to send some one round?
My temptation would be to send out an email telling all owners that because some [named??] owners claim not to have received due notice, you are going to have to call another meeting to ratify the decisions made at the meeting they claim, without evidence, to have not been compliant. If you can add potential expense to the re-called meeting, so much the better.
That said, there is a convention that you have to allow two or three working days (not including weekends) for notices to arrive by mail, if that’s how they were sent.
All said and done, I sense you may have more significant problems in your block than delivery times of notices.
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improvements require a special resolution which is a majority for, and less than a quarter voting against.
In NSW these require a majority of votes at a general meeting – but that’s only of those present and voting, not of all owners. I believe in Victoria, Special Resolutions require a majority of all owners (but there is a provision for interim resolutions which will become permanent if they aren’t challenged withing a month of the vote).
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There is a provision under NSW strata law that if the developer presents a budget that is seriously under estimated – to keep levies low to help sell their properties – the Tribunal can order them to compansate the owners.
The informal advice I’ve had on that is that the cost of pursuing a claim would outweigh any benefit. So why have the law in the first place if it is so impractical.
The next review of strata laws should establish benchmarks – maybe CPI plus 5 per cent – after which the developer has to make up the shortfall for the first three years.
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When your building applied for its occupancy certificate, all these systems required by the standard would have been installed and certified.
Yeah … in an ideal world – but that’s not the world we live in. It depends on the developer and the certifier and how diligent they are.
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Rereading JTs other post I want to ad,
What other post? It would help a lot if you could reply to the post to which you are responding.
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Here’s a horror story about what happens when Company Title boards aren’t governed by strata law and a retiree is forced out of her home by chronic damp.
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My questions are:
- are abseiling anchor points a construction requirement? I’ve looked about and can’t find this anywhere. That’s HERE.
- do developers have to submit a common property specification, is this available to owners? That’s HERE.
- how to placate owners about strata levies that were clearly underestimated- and make them understand that this is only the ‘honeymoon’ year, and they will all likely go up by 20-25% next year due to the first year not including Capital works budget and extra required for other things mentioned. That’s HERE.
I think you may have done yourself a disservice with such a long and detailed (and interesting) post. Each of these issues might be worth a post on its own. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m closing this post to responses and opening up three separate questions for you on this page. How’s that for service? Flatchatters can now answer the questions individually by clicking on the associated links above,
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We three are the ones who have tried to get the rest of the owners to approve these repairs at the last 3 AGMs to no avail. So we are trying to get the job done and aren’t being negligent.
It’s not a question of proving that you are negligent. You can go to NCAT and ask them to issue orders overturning decisions not to maintain and repair common property.
You would only need super-majorities if you were changing or improving common property, so the 51 percent rule applies. And don’t forget, as someone has already pointed out, you may already have a mjority, depending on how your unit entitlements fall.
I also heard a whisper the other day that strata committees can act in defiance of the owners corp if they are doing so to fulfil their statutory duties. Maybe talk to a friendly strata lawyer about that.
Or have the “easy way … hard way” chat with your owners. They can agree to do this the easy way – just get it done and pay the bills – or the hard way, fight it at the Tribunal, pay for lawyers and still have to pay to get it done.
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Owners are not forbidden from attending strata committee meetings in Victoria but there is no statutory requirement to inform owners that there is going to be a strata committee meeting.
This is unlike NSW where owners must be informed about the meeting and have the right to attend. However, they can only speak if allowed to do so by a vote of the committee.
Under Section 109 of Victoria’s Owners Corporation Act, only committee members have to be informed. Thus, without saying it in so many words, the committee would have to inform ordinary owners about the meeting only if they wanted them to attend.
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I assume the NSW legislation has a similar provision
In NSW would go for orders under Section 232 (2) while keeping a watchful eye on Section 237:
232 Orders to settle disputes or rectify complaints
(2) Failure to exercise a function
For the purposes of this section, an owners corporation, strata committee or building management committee is taken not to have exercised 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.
237 Orders for appointment of strata managing agent
(1) Order appointing or requiring the appointment of strata managing agent to exercise functions of owners corporationThe Tribunal may, on its own motion or on application, make an order appointing a person as a strata managing agent or requiring an owners corporation to appoint a person as a strata managing agent—(a) to exercise all the functions of an owners corporation, or(b) to exercise specified functions of an owners corporation, or(c) to exercise all the functions other than specified functions of an owners corporation.(2) Order may confer other functions on strata managing agentThe Tribunal may also, when making an order under this section, order that the strata managing agent is to have and may exercise—(a) all the functions of the chairperson, secretary, treasurer or strata committee of the owners corporation, or(b) specified functions of the chairperson, secretary, treasurer or strata committee of the owners corporation, or(c) all the functions of the chairperson, secretary, treasurer or strata committee of the owners corporation other than specified functions.(3) Circumstances in which order may be made The Tribunal may make an order only if satisfied that—(a) the management of a strata scheme the subject of an application for an order under this Act or an appeal to the Tribunal is not functioning or is not functioning satisfactorily, or(b) an owners corporation has failed to comply with a requirement imposed on the owners corporation by an order made under this Act, or(c) an owners corporation has failed to perform one or more of its duties…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.