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I understand your concerns
However the Owners Corporation is responsible for the repair and maintenance of common property. Yourfront door forms part of the common property.
Whilst it may be the door to your lot, you don’t have much of a say about it.
The Owners Coprporation also has the right to enter your lot in order to carry out repairs and maintenance.
Having a member of the committee contact you is not bullying or harassing. They are just trying to carry out their function.
Perhaps a calm conversation with the committee member stating your concerns could lead to a mutually satisfactory result.
As I have been told in the past, in this case, resistance is futile.
Are you sure that you have by-laws to cover the issues you raise.
You can’t regulate how people keep their private garden.
Provided a tool shed or cubby is less than certain sizes, council approval is not required to erect then. The OC can’t regulate what is done within a person lot
You a may be able ro apply the below regarding the external appearance of a lot, particularly for the balcony, but this could come back to bite you if the target decides to pick on your property with the same by-law.
Beware of what you wish for
There are some people out there who live to different standards to our own. Its frustrating.
Don’t you know people whose home is a mess with shoes, c lothes, china, etc all over the house and floor. Your not going to tell them how to live.
The strata manager may not be issuing a notice to comply because there is no by law being breached.
Perhaps you can help the strata manager by looking through your by laws and showing him which ones you think are being breached
Is there a renovation by law? That may define who is responsible. Failing that the changes to common property are the responsibility of the OC.
Its tricky situation when stuff like renovations is not documented.
And your problem is to prove that the tile damage was done by the present owner. They will probably just claim normal wear and tear. Without proving intentional damage ( you’d have to take that to court where the out of the action may exceed the out of repairs even if you win) its still the OC responsibility.
Is this a rule or is there a bylaw for this deposit?
If its a rule then you can change it at any time with or without the approval of the OC. (but thats being a bit cheeky)
If its a bylaw, then look at the bylaw carefully. It will say who has to pay the deposit – owner, tenant, property manager. Then instruct your strata manager to collect from the nominated party.
The difficulty whether thi is a bylaw or a rule is that the tenant is unknown to you and MAY only become known if the property manager actually notifies the OC. Its an offence to not notify the OC of a tenant, but the common practice is non compliance.
Perhaps change the rule/bylaw to make the owner pay (They can then get reimbursement from the tenant). This is also a good strategy )owner paying) as they will be more vigilent in getting tenants to dispose of their unwanted chattels at the end of the tenancy. The OC withholds the owner s money and then its the owners problem to either return only part of the rental bond or chase the tenant for the withheld deposit.
The courts are able to award compensation when one can demonstrate a real loss. In the case of the renter having to move out and use other accommadation is a real loss. That usually means being able to present invoices, bills etc that the court can assess.
Contrary to what we see from American TV shows , the courts do not usually award money for emotional losses, inconvenience etc etc (Unless you can demonstrate probably via medical reports otherwise that the event caused your “stress’)
Where was the OC in regulating this renovator? Surely the approval of what seemed to be a major renovation should have come with conditions (hours of work, dust, noise, clean up etc). It would then be up to the OC to enforce this.
Was approval by the renovator ever sought?
How did this strata manager get appointed (if its recent)?
Does the rest of the committee agree with you that the SM performance is below par.
Read the management contract. See if there are provisions to sack them (if thats what you want) In any case, if other committee members agree with you, send a letter signed by the committee putting them on notice. Be specific with what you want improved. Give them time to improve (say a month) and if there is no improvement you may seek to have a court sack them for breach of contract. And keep any records of correspondance and communications and lack of replies as evidence.
I have found that particularly with the large strata management companies, the person handling your building is inexperienced and their main job is to do as little as possible and charge as much schedule B fees as possible. They also manage far more buildings than is humanly possible to do. And they get paid very little.
It sounds like the choice of strata manager was not a good one.
The tenant is NOT responsible as its clearly a building fault. They may genuinely never have noticed it, and proving otherwise is pointless.
Who’s responsibility to repair it is a question to answer.
If its an external wall, its the OC responsibility
If its an internal wall it is probably the owners responsibility UNLESS it has been a failure of the original waterproofing (say in a bathroom)
It sounds like you’re a renter.
You need to approach the owner or property manager
A fair compensation would be reduction of rent whilst you are unable to live there. You could try your luck in asking for the cost of alternate accomadation as well, but its unlikely you would get both.
if the owner wont agree to any of this, go to NCAT and seek compensation . Its highly likely they would grant it as it seems that the tiling was at the owners request (or maybe the strata but that does not matter)
The owner can fight it out with the strata for any compensation they had to pay.
If I understand your comments, you have the in to the committee that you need.
I understand that the committee consists of two people from the same lot.
You nominated for the committee but the OC voted to have only 2 members.
One of these members is not allowed because they are from the same lot, so you are automatically the second committee member.
If you cant convince the committee and strata manager of their errors, take this to NCAT, You may also want to consider asking to have the solicitor removed by NCAT from the committee for the lack of knowledge of the act.
May be a final comment from me.
You can’t in normal circumstances be “unvoted” from a committee
The act says the maximum number of committee members is 9. In a block of 5 if all lots nominate one person every nominee will be on the committee, unless a motion is passed to limit the numbers of committee members. But then a vote needs to be taken to elect members from the nominations.
I agree that Jimmy’s last advice is pretty correct.
The insurer, at this stage does not care about what maintenance has been or not been done.
Its when you make a claim that they may reduce the payout citing that the property was not maintained properly. This pertains to a loss of property claim.
In other instances (say someone was injured) the insurer may claim that you knew of the hazard and then either refuse to pay the claim or else pay a lesser amount, the balance that would have to be paid by the owners.
By neglecting to fix the boathouse the members of the committee are exposing themselves to personally being sued for any losses.
If they recognise the gravity of that last statement then it might swing them into some action.
I’d also be including the repair as a motion on the next general meeting. That way the committee can’t sweep the issue under the carpet.
One question comes to my mind Truleconcerned.
If you are in a block of 5, why are you not on the committee? its unlikely that if you nominated that you would not get a seat. You then have front row access to all correspondence between the strata manager and the committee.
Whilst its not strictly to the letter of the law, smaller strata schemes tend to be less formal with decision making. With fewer owners communication channels are far less complicated and its often more expedient to do business by email. The level of expenditure for a small strata is low so financial decisions are of low impact.
To me you seem to be on some crusade which for the small amount of expenditure is out of proportion with the effort your putting in.
Why not just wipe the past, get more involved with the committee and see what you can do to help. Its hard to change the past, especially in “small” matters like this. The committee and the strata manager will find more excuses to justify their decision. Your only hope then is a visit to NCAT and in the the scheme of things your issue is small bickies to NCAT.
The last thing you want, especially in a small strata is to be labelled as that troublemaker.
Perhaps this is not the advice you want to hear, but I am a pragmatic guy and believe in directing energy towards the big issues.
In light of recent court rulings owners corporations cannot ban pets. But most pet by-laws say that a pet requires the approval of the OC.
If the pet causes smells from its droppings, attacks another resident then the OC has grounds to remove approval for the pet..
The difference is that with holding approval before the fact assumes something bad may happen ( it may not) but withdrawal of approval after the fact is then based on concrete events.
You need to refer to your bylaws as to whether approval can be removed.
Trule concerned
I think you are making assumptions which may not be true.
Unless restricted by the OC the committee can spend money without approval for the benefit of the strata. A committee member getting some strata training id of benefit to the OC. Even if the strata manager is delegated all the functions the committee is still responsible for overseeing decisions as well as making some.
I’m sure if you ask NICELY the member would share any materials they have.
Unless you have some basis for your suspicions don’t go looking for transgressions. Its the quickest way to become labelled that crazy person.
In the case of payment for work done, that’s a tricky one. Committee members are generally not paid for their time. However the member may be doing maintenance work around the property which would normally done by paid contractors. IMHO if he won the job on a competitive tender and had the necessary qualifications and was approved by the committee then i see that its a benefit for the OC to pay them for the work
You can also point out to the agent that the owner can be fined up to $550 for not providing the tenants details. That may spur them on.
And in relatin to privacy laws, they are there to prevent the dissemination of personal details to parties without any interest in the person. Since an OC has an interest ( ie there is a lawful relationship between the OC and the tenant), then the OC has a right to that information. The act just reinforces this.