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Aaah, the old chocolate teapot of Fair Trading – “you must use the official form (or a reasonable approximation …)”
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If there were sufficient owners who would have vetoed the agenda item, then a basis for overturning the decision of the committee exists.
So what you’re saying is, if you can get
25 per centone-third of owners to sign a letter saying they would have objected to the item’s inclusion on the agenda, then NCAT may consider the decision to be technically in breach? Sounds fair.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 new Design and Building Practitioners Act can make life much more complicated for owners of Class 2 buildings. A seemingly straightforward job like replacing a balcony requires designs by registered practitioners, including for the waterproofing system, before any works can commence
Now we’re getting to the heart of it. Great reply!
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A couple of basic questions – you refer to the “Body Corporate company”; which state are you in and do you mean the strata manager?
Also, what exactly is the thrust of your second question?
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That’s why I thought a sound recorder could be a solution. But if you are saying there’s no way to prove the recordings haven’t been doctored, then it’s out.
That’s not what I said. I said it would be better to have an independent assessment. It sounds to me that we have one owner who makes a bit more noise than usual, and a neighbour who is unusually sensitive to it. In your shoes, I’d be saying you didn’t think it was you, but if the neighbour wanted to install sound monitoring devices, monitored by an independent assessor, you’d be okay with that. And suddenly the cost of monitoring is in their financial court, not yours.
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That’s an interesting remark. I’m not sure that the chair has any functions that can be delegated. The second schedule to the SSMA says that if present, the chair presides over general meetings. There’s nothing to delegate!
Speaking as someone who has very recently had to gently wrestle the chairmanship of a strata committee and OC from a strata manager who was used to using the delegation to run the various blocks they managed, all I can say is, there’s the law, and there’s common practice and then there’s real life.
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Okay, your second sentence is a non-sequitur – what does the class of the building have to do with the size of the balcony?
Please go back to basics and tell us how the block is designated – the Class it’s in, according to your original DA with the council – then tell us why the strata manager is insisting on something you say is a rip-off.
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You might also find section 48 of the Act interesting:
48 Tribunal may order meeting if no officers or strata committee(1) The Tribunal may, on application by an owner, mortgagee or covenant chargee of a lot in a strata scheme, make an order appointing a person to convene and hold a meeting of the owners corporation if there is not a chairperson, secretary and treasurer of the owners corporation, or if no strata committee exists, after the first annual general meeting of the owners corporation has been held.
(2) The Tribunal may make any other ancillary orders it thinks fit, including the following orders—
(a) orders relating to giving notice of the meeting,
(b) orders relating to the person who is to preside at the meeting.
(3) The person who is to convene and hold the meeting is to be a person nominated by the applicant, or appointed by the Tribunal, who has consented to the nomination or appointment.
(4) The meeting is to be convened and held within the time (if any) specified in the order.
(5) A person appointed by an order under this section to preside at a meeting is taken, while so presiding, to be the chairperson of the owners corporation.
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{Tick and complete whichever applies below}
The above phrase does not appear on the official proxy form. The phrase “tick and complete whichever applies” is an asterisked reference to the options above it, allowing owners to choose the duration of the proxy. If the form had the word “below” added to that phrase it may well be invalid.
You can access the official form HERE.
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I would assume that the owners of this dog (despite Jimmy painting them as knuckle dragging idiots) have accepted the dog with all its faults.
I apologise for my lazy assumption that the dog or its owners were in some way defective. I had just been reading about how breeding and trade in Bully XL dogs (another variation of Staffy) has been banned in England, leading to them all shifting to Scotland where no such ban exists.
I also included a very positive review of AmStaffs (as they are known) in the introduction to the Forum roundup. I guess what is needed here is an independent assessment of individual dogs in any potentially dangerous situations – such as, in a lift with a smaller dog.
I included my comments about cats to show that there is a lot of leeway afforded dogs by the law. I think it’s a bit much to extend that to imply that wandering felines deserve whatever they get.
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There are commercially available instruments, that range from an app for your iPhone to a fully commercial “listening” kit. That said, you might be better hiring a qualified audio engineer to set up a monitoring device that records the sound levels in your home (not the actual sound). I have no idea how much that might cost but at the end of the day you will have a reliable record and an independent professionally qualified witness.
That said, I’n not sure who might provide such a service but a deep Google search dug up these guys: Noise in Apartments | Audiometric & Acoustic Services (noiseconsult.com.au) Might be worth a phone call. Good luck!
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The official and only truly valid proxy form does not have check boxes and in fact only has instructions to delete whichever paragraph is not appropriate. If the paragraphs concerned weren’t deleted, then they are valid whether they are ticked or not.
Your strata manager is desperately clinging on and is doing so by misrepresenting the facts. I would be inviting him to resign before you ask Fair Trading and the Strata Commissioner to make a very public example of him. And if he doesn’t, I have the Strata Commissioner’s email address.
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Usually under a strata management agreement, the functions of the chair, secretary and treasurer are delegated to the strata manager.
That assumes there is a strata manager – in many smaller schemes there isn’t.
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Would some condition, that the dog must be muzzled at all times whist on common property, be a compromise?
Yes, and the offer of such a compromise would probably get you past the ban on pet bans – and would surely be rejected by the dog owners. I just worry about any cats that might stray into its zone. Apparently it’s not illegal for a dog to attack a cat that is in the dog’s territory, but it is if the dog is in the cat’s area or on common property.
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