[Strata Ken]

I somehow missed the replies. Yes, I now understand that people might scream and shout, but in the end it is being done.  I expect they will probably be able to delay a year or two, but it will happen.

We now have a new Strata manager, from a very well regarded firm. Beforehand we had a bit of messing around with the previous strata manager. One of the things I’m going to do is to look through all the work and create a nice table of what everything is costing and the priority and hopefully we can get it down closer to 150,000 and we may look at other builders.

The reason for the high costs is we have balcony problems and they are costing a lot, and that seems to be how everything is at the moment. The regulations in NSW are now extremely strict. Like once we start playing with the balconies, we have to replace the balustrades because they are not legal. The quotes also include replacing the doors, because everything has to fit together, and there is a cost of $14,000per unit for a balcony with a full width balcony, and another small balcony. And it goes on.

We are looking at a loan, but I’m not certain how many owners can afford an extra key of $15-20k per year. Like if the only owners who can afford it, can also afford to pay the levy in full, it makes it a lot cheaper just to ask for one special levy. I would pay it out of my super and then once I’m of pension age, which will be soon, use the governments  system for borrowing against property assets.

I think this is all going to be unpleasant, with a reasonable number of owners going bankrupt or at least selling at a loss.

[Strata Ken]

The problem is that most levy problems are not that unexpected. Things like the need to fix building defects are usually because at least a certain proportion of the owners have been ignoring things.

Our previous manager had allowed the unpaid levies to build up. We have 5 owners with debts totalling $150,000 which means we are short about $3,000 for each of the total owners. Supposedly it was going to the debt collectors, but who knows. Shortly we will. We are going to end up having so many forced sales because we have a massive remediation bill, so we need to get the arrears under control.

Most of the owners wont be able to afford the remediation, so they will be added to the list. What a neighbouring unit block seems to have done is to increase the capital works levy to about $3,000 a year, and there are now 3 out of 24 up for sale. They will be borrowing $150,000 per unit, so the repayment will be $23,000 a year. Buyers are probably looking at $200,000 off.

[Strata Ken]

1.5 million in debt isn’t a lot for a 70 unit block. You have 1% so your share is $15,000. They will probably be paying 9% interest, so there is likely a move to firstly get rid of the debt, so they aren’t paying interest, and there are probably other things that they want to do. It also is possible that some of the debt is due to strata arrears and that can take a while. You will need to take into account that there will be special levies.

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MavStrata

[Strata Ken]

I find the idea that different classes of owners will be treated differently a bit difficult. Now if the banks decide to write off the debt for certain classes of owner, then that is fine, as it is a commercial decision for them. What isn’t clear is how much the banks are going to receive from the sale of the property.

This also shows a deficiency in strata law. The have a strata scheme that is basically defunct, which can only re resolved in two ways. Either the owners decide that the strata will do the repairs, which probably meant unacceptable levies or borrowings or they sell it to someone who will fix it.  It seems that if a significant proportion of the owners decide that neither meets their expectations then they can just leave it sitting there.

One point is that the banks and the strata committee could probably force the sale of most of the units, except it would be a public relations nightmare. There was something today in the SMH which suggested that a lot of owners didn’t pay the special levies for the legal action. Our strata has bylaws which specify what is to happen when unpaid levies exceed a threshold. May strata is in breach of theirs.

[Strata Ken]

We think there is a mental health issue, but she can control herself when she wants to. The police seemed to have an effect for a few days. I think they have been called again, as it has gone quiet again.

The landlord wasn’t terribly interested. He doesn’t live here. We are going to include him on the notice to help him become interested.

Log is a good idea, we will do that.

I would consider it a win, if incidents became much less frequent and the landlord kicked her out at the end of her fixed term. I don’t think we can put enough pressure on him to result in him making an application to evict.

[Strata Ken]

Thanks, again. Yes, lawyers have guaranteed themselves a nice income by making procedural fairness, etc a strict requirement. I’ve also been told that the lawyers will also be able to advise on whether we need to change the bylaws to make them clearer. The other trick I’ve been told is to include the owner, as they are allowing the person on the property.

[Strata Ken]

Thank you for that, very helpful. It would be nice if Fair Trading laid out more clearly the steps of resolving problems, and also put a bit more thought into some of the legislation. A few years ago a club I was in got into a mess because of the associations incorporation act deficiencies. Over half the committee resigned. including secretary, so no quorum and no one was able to call a special general meeting. You need to ask Fair Trading to call it for you, and they aren’t fast at doing things.

I need to find the by-laws which we use, but I assume that we adopted the model by-laws which have “An owner or occupier of a lot, or any invitee of an owner or occupier of a lot, must not create any noise on a lot or the common property likely to interfere with the peaceful enjoyment of the owner or occupier of another lot or of any person lawfully using common property.” Screaming at people would certainly in breach of that.

After 2 days of quiet since the police had a talk to her, she has been screaming again.

 

[Strata Ken]

Another question. How does using a law firm, compare to doing it yourself. We have had a quote last year of what I now realise is the full process of $8,000, where the lawyers would give advice but not speak. Seems a lot, but past dealings with Fair Trading suggest that they will reject anything that doesn’t agree with their requirements.

[Strata Ken]

The risks of AI are very much overrated, at least for decades. AI essentially is about building systems that make decisions, and they initially do this by looking at a large number of decisions and trying to get the correct result. As such they are fairly limited in what they can do.

There are risks, and abig one is with the military. We can design AI that determine if someone or something is hostile and then choose a strategy to kill it. These will likely become more complex. Currently the major nations have agreed that any decisions should be agreed by humans but I expect it will be watered down.

As an example a tank might detect an incoming shell. It takes action to shoot it down automatically, because there isn’t the time for human approval. It then calculates the location of where the shell was fired from and requests approval for fire. At some future time there will be multiple attackers and everything will be automatic.

It isn’t going to read a book on ethics and decide that we are killing the planet and should end humans existence.

[Author]

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