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Thinking about this a bit more, why are you waiting until the last day to pay your levies?
Are you really comfortable about your neighbours carrying your financial commitments for what amounts to almost 10 percent of the year?
Is this a silent protest at a perceived injustice? Maybe that’s why they’ve hit you early with the penalty interest.
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I suppose it’s better than “any other competent business” – but only marginally. The problem might arise if, for instance, someone used it to belatedly propose that a resident receive a Notice To Comply for an alleged by-law breach. That would get tossed immediately if it went to NCAT.
I think the rule of thumb would have to be, are there likely to be actions or consequences to which someone might object. In other words, if it doesn’t really matter, then it doesn’t really matter.
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By the way, even if you didn’t have this pretty solid by-law, you could still take the upstairs owner to NCAT on a nuisance complaint.
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Section 7 of Schedule 2 of the Act says this:
Matters that must be included in notice of meetingsThe notice of a meeting must include a detailed agenda for the meeting.
It can hardly be detailed if there are matters not on it. The purpose is so that owners can see what is about to be discussed and either attend or send responses. If they can gather enough votes from owners, they can even prevent matters from being discussed.
Any matter that was discssed that wasn’t on the agenda could therefore be challenged at a later date. The chair was right, regardless of the content in your motion.
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there’s nothing here that leads me to believe that this gives the owner the right to replace noise insulating carpet in the living area with tiles. Am I wrong?
Your strata manager is being a bit cute. There’s nothing there to tell them specifically to lay down rugs but there is plenty implied in the by-law that requires them to insulate the floor properly. Simple question – why should they be allowed to enhance the value of their property to the detriment of yours?
Ask the strata manager and committee which they would prefer – either enforce the by-laws or be dragged through NCAT, then have to enforce the by-laws, then have to explain to all the other owners why they have to pay your legal bills as well as their own just because they were too lazy or misinformed to do the right thing when they had the chance.
And start making a diary not of every noise from upstairs, record the noise on your phone and get neighbours to listen so they can back you up if need be.
This will cost the selfish B upstairs a lot to fix but that’s not your problem. You only have to know they will put up a fight and be ready for it.
Oh, and ask your strata manager if they have read the SCA’s code of conduct. If they have, why are they ignoring it?
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What part of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 stipulates that an AGM should be held………annually?? I’d like to parrot this if we have an AGM prior to Christmas 2022.
An owners corporation must hold an annual general meeting once in each financial year of the corporation.
You might also be interested in section 41 (below) which says that the committee must appoint a chair, secretary and treasurer (although these offices may be fulfilled by the strata manager through delegation).
(1) The members of a strata committee must, at the first meeting of the strata committee after they assume office as members, appoint a chairperson, secretary and treasurer of the strata committee in accordance with this Act.
(2) The chairperson, secretary and treasurer of the strata committee are also, respectively, the chairperson, secretary and treasurer of the owners corporation.
(3) A person may be appointed to one or more of the offices of chairperson, secretary and treasurer.
(4) Nomination for election as an officer of the owners corporation may be made before or at the meeting at which the election is held.
(5) The regulations may provide for the procedures for nomination of officers of the strata committee.
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From what I have seen and read contracted strata managers only do the administrative work which with a little input from 5 owners can be done without placing too much burden on anyone.
Have a look at online services like our sponsors Stratabox.com.au. It has all the functions you need to make self-management easy, effective and compliant with the law.
Your owners will save $2500 to $3000 a year just by not having a strata manager. Lord know how much they’ll save by not having poor decisions made on their behalf.
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Firstly, I don’t think strata managers should be driving people out of their homes.
There are legal requirements for holding AGMs and your SM and secretary haven’t fulfilled them. Get in touch with Fair Trading, ask what you need to do. If you haven’t had an AGM for three years then the SM’s contract must be due to run out. This could be an opportunity to change everything for the better. Also, bear in mind that the secretary can call an AGM without the strata manager’s involvement, let alone their approval (although they probably have all the paperwork you need).
On a different matter, going into a townhouse purchase with a plan to remove the existing strata manager sounds like a recipe for chaos and disaster. The fact that you are already at odds with them will only exacerbate the issues.
Two-unit strata schemes are notoriously prone to nasty neighbour battles. They usually only have a strata manager because either the owners need a referee, or because they don’t want the hassle of running their own show, or because they don’t understand their rights and obligations. None of these scenarios is conducive to a newcomer being welcomed into the fold with a plan to change everything.
Stick with your current strata scheme and deal with the strata manager. Maybe if the contract is due for renewal you could talk to a potential replacement who will advise you on what you need to do next.
Actually, your 10-unit block would be a prime candidate for self-management – a much better prospect than a duplex with a bad manager in situ.
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Here’s the letter on a Nine news site which I don’t think requires a subscription: Sydney tenant’s ‘utterly bizarre’ letter from strata (9news.com.au)
All the strata scheme is doing is pre-empting people putting any old ugly crap on their balconies – which it has the power to do – and we get a sadly typical strata-haters pile-on. Has there been a problem in the building with garbage on balconies? We don’t know as there is no context or quotes.
But it’s a pompous over-reach by the committee, for sure, and I wonder how their efforts to make their block more attractive to potential purchasers and tenants shape up now.
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Unless you can find a source of second-hand stovetops of a similar quality, it’s off to the shops for you.
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The legislation is a wish list and failure to comply means no consequence in too many cases.
Strata schemes are largely self-policing. If there’s a problem, you ask the other owners to tell the committee to fix it. If the problem is big enough, or the other owners aren’t interested, you ask NCAT to fix it. If the problem is intractable, NCAT can decide to put a statutory manager in, whether you want one or not.
But you have a point. Look at the number of rules in the Act that don’t have penalties attached and you can see how much wishful thinking it contains.
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I’m in Vic. I always thought it was almost discretionary for the strata manager to consider interest on overdue levies.
Not in NSW. There the 10 per cent late payment charge is mandatory but may be waived by an owners corp decision at a general meeting.
The question is, shouldn’t penalties apply from the last day of the 30 days’ grace given after the due date. And I would say yes, unless there are special rules for special levies (that I don’t know about).
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Interesting call given in another thread our agent claims come close of books any unspent money in the capital works fund becomes unspecified surplus, i.e. money does not accumulate to any purpose.
The difference would be between unspent and unallocated funds. A smart strata manager would recommend either bringing forward some of the capital works (CW) or reducing the CW portion of the levies until such times as everything was back on track.
What owners really need to see is a list of future CW projects, how much they are likely to cost and where that money might come from – accumulated funds, special levies or strata loans.
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I ran this past our sponsor, strata lawyer David Bannerman, during our “Lawyer in the Hot Seat” session last week and he said that while the law on this was open to interpretation (or misinterpretation) the intent of the section is that the borrowed money should be paid back within three months and the legislation will be updated to reflect this in the next round of changes.
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If the owner’s corporation has agreed to a course of action the secretary can go ahead and fulfil that remit without requiring the approval of the committee. Remember, the owners tell the committee what to do, not the other way round.
If you look at the roles of secretary and chair, as defined in the strata Act, the secretary’s include “to attend to matters of an administrative or secretarial nature in connection with the exercise of functions by the owners corporation or the strata committee of the owners corporation.”
By way of contrast, the chair’s job is basically to chair meetings.
I would say the secretary can and should follow the instrauction of the owners corp decided at a general meeting unless there is a minuted item on a strata committee agenda that gives a reason for not doing so.
43 Functions of secretary of owners corporation
The functions of a secretary of an owners corporation include the following:
(a) to prepare and distribute minutes of meetings of the owners corporation and submit a motion for confirmation of the minutes of any meeting of the owners corporation at the next such meeting,
(b) to give on behalf of the owners corporation and the strata committee of the owners corporation notices required to be given under this Act,
(c) to maintain the strata roll,
(d) to enable the inspection of documents on behalf of the owners corporation in accordance with this Act,
(e) to answer communications addressed to the owners corporation,
(f) to convene meetings of the strata committee and (apart from its first annual general meeting) of the owners corporation,
(g) to attend to matters of an administrative or secretarial nature in connection with the exercise of functions by the owners corporation or the strata committee of the owners corporation,
(h) any other functions conferred on the secretary under any other Act or law42 Functions of chairperson of owners corporation
The functions of the chairperson of an owners corporation include the following:
(a) to preside at meetings of the owners corporation and the strata committee of the owners corporation,
(b) to make determinations as to quorums and procedural matters at meetings of the owners corporation and the strata committee of the owners corporation.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.