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I can’t help thinking there must be a law somewhere that prevents strata schemes from discriminating against people with disabilities. If you were able to show that there was a way that the owners corp could provide you with power and even charge for it (a plug-in meter, perhaps) and they were refusing to do so, they might fall foul of such legislation.
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The owners corporation has responsibility for the common property which probably includes the ceiling above the car space. Send them a bill for the damage done and take them to court (a proper court, not NCAT) if they refuse to pay. Don’t faff around getting people to accept responsibility and then pay – they won’t.
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It sounds like this may have been done on a nod and a wink, with no paperwork to clutter the smooth operation of the scheme. Offer the owners corp a reasonable fee for leasing the space and they’ll get some value while legitimising the relationship.
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The act requires the landlord to notify the OC of the details of any tenant. There are prescribed monetary penalties for not doing this.
Also, tenants are “interested parties” under strata law. Your strata manager needs to go back to strata school.
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I would stick on a by-law right now that says owners can only change the outward appearance of the scheme with the approval of the committee. However, the white or light-coloured roof is much more environmentally sustainable – white reflects heat rather than having to cool the house artificially – so that may have been a factor.
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The purchaser may well feel aggrieved but that doesn’t mean they have no liability. It’s up to the vendor to provide accurate information about future liabilities and the purchaser to check through strata records (as far as possible) that this is accurate.
The strata scheme has no responsibility for assumptions the purchaser makes, whether they are accurate or not. There must be some record of the failure to complete the work somewhere. It’s sad for the purchaser but this proves the value of a forensic search of strata records before you buy.
If the strata manager has told them that they don’t have to pay, that’s on the strata manager, not the committee.
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This is really very simple. The principle of caveat emptor – buyer beware – applies. If all these plans have been properly documented in previous minutes, the new owner should know that there is a special levy coming. If they didn’t do a proper strata check, presumably to save money, more fool them. If the vendor deliberately misled them, then the new owner can sue.
What cannot happen is that the other owners have to pay more than their fair share because the purchaser was badly informed (unless it was by the owners corp).
The manager – are they a building manager or strata manager? – is totally wrong and needs to go back to strata school (if they ever attended). I would put them on notice that any further erroneous advice will be taken as a breach of contract. You shouldn’t have to go searching for advice on what is a very basic question.
Charge the new owner their share of the special levy and let them chase legal advice if they feel so inclined.
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From the day they moved into NSW, Airbnb have operated by stealth. Firstly they were telling us that this was a way of owners and tenants making money – and meeting new people – by renting out a spare room to tourists.
Then, when it became apparent that the vast bulk of their business was from people letting whole properties, often displacing residential tenants, it became about the right of owners and investor tenants to make money and the revenue for the tourist industry.
Naive journalists and politicians were flown to their company headquarters in San Franciso to be wined and dined, shown their impressive banks of computer screens and handed a press release that could have been emailed to them.
Academics who were invited to go to their HQ to get the “true picture” were met by junior members of management who told them nothing they didn’t already know.
And all the while they would hide the true figures by saying they were protecting the privacy of their users, and dismiss efforts by organisations like InsideAirbnb.com as inaccurate.
Now that they are fully embedded in our culture, it’s too late. Our politicians have sold us down the river and there is no turning back.
The problem, by the way, isn’t the quirky lodgings in remote areas. It’s the hollowing out of popular tourist areas like Bondi and Byron Bay as former locals are driven out by landlords and head tenants looking for easy money, and the conversion of new apartment blocks in prime city areas, into virtual hotels (only without the moderating services of managers, security and cleaning staff).
InsideAirbnb.com is about as close as you will get to the truth as it monitors the properties for rent and factors in the actual usage. Until Airbnb opens its books, that’s as accurate a suburb by suburb picture as you will get.
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What you are looking for is called Insideairbnb.com.
Airbnb disputes their figures but refuses to release their own.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.
don’t I need OC approval to work on it?
The strata manager can usually give permission on behalf of the committee. You don’t need a by-law if you’re only effecting repairs (and the OC should be doing it anyway).
I’d hope to sort this our without involving NCAT.Well, there’s the threat of going to NCAT and then there’s actually going. Saying you are confident you are right, so much so that you believe you will win at a tribunal, may focus the strata manager’s mind and have them seeking advice from someone who knows what they’re talking about.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.
Hi
First of all, you replied to this thread about three or four times which meant I had to go through and delete the posts then reinstate the latest one. Please be patient if you want to change something and your post hasn’t been approved yet.
Back to the topic, write to your strata manager and tell them you have had advice that their view is erroneous but you are taking their suggestion that you fix it yourself as permission to get the work done, after which you will send them a bill for the work done. If they have a problem with that, they can either raise it now or later at a tribunal.
And no, the cabling inside your lot is not common property so you need to fix that yourself. Nice try, though.
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Strata Community Association (the strata managers’ professional body) says this in its “Who’s responsible …” document:
Any pipe, cable, telephone, television, internet wires, ducting, plugs, electrical wiring, light fitting, power point sockets or the like that is for the exclusive use of the lot, then if it breaks within the lot it is an Owners responsibility to repair.
Any pipe, cable, telephone, television or internet wiring, ducting, plugs, electrical wiring, light fitting, power point sockets or the like that services more than one lot, if it breaks outside the lot or in a wall, floor or ceiling that abuts to either common property or another lot it is an Owners Corporations responsibility to repair.The strata manager’s the one whose got it wrong. Although it doesn’t spell that out succinctly, if the cabling is in the common property ceiling/floor, then it’s not in the lot. If it’s not in the lot, it’s not the owner’s responsibility.
The part of the cable that’s in common property is owners corp responsibility, until the point that it enters lot property, regardless of how many lots it services. The same principle applies to water pipes.
By the way, there’s an electrical and fire safety issue here and that alone should tell you that the perished cabling can’t be lot owner’s responsibility.
If the strata manager still disagrees, arrange a mediation at Fair Trading with a view to a Section 232 order at NCAT for failure to fulfil a responsibility. That should sort them out.
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It would be interesting to know exactly why the strata manager issued this ultimatum but, given as I am to being allergic to threats, I would ask them why they did so and then politely invite them to take the door marked “exit”. Even if they are 100 per cent right, that is no way to run a business or a strata scheme.
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Perhaps Flat-Chat could inform the incoming Minister for Fair Trading just what needs to be done.
Way ahead of you. Have a listen (or read) of this week’s podcast.
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