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I believe it should be approved by a majourity of all owners not just the EC, but whether it legally needs to be is another matter.
What is it going to cost to obtain these 3 quotes and is it within the spending limits of the EC??
Also once the designs have been obtained they will need to be approved by a SR (75% in favour) as it is an improvement and you are more likely to obtain this if everyone was involved at the begining.
Sounds fine to me I wish my Townhouse was so defined as it means YOU are reasponsible for the whole of your property (this is a concept that has been used for centuries in UK for townhouses).
If the roof leaks you fix it if the window breaks you fix it without recourse to strata. No hassle with special bylaws, you just need a simple motion for any improvements. It’s a far simpler system than what we have now generally.
This is classed as Standard Format in QLD and is perfectly viable. Problem is Investors don’t like it and so virtually no housing developments in QLD are defined this way (even though the act was designed for townhouses and standalone villas to be classed as Standard format) due to lazy (corrupt) politicians and unscruplous developers.
Strata is only reasponsible for the driveways, boundary fence and sort out your own house nsurance.
Investors will avoid it so it will be bought by mainly owner occupiers due to tax reasons.
Yes you are correct they are in breach of the act
From Schedule 3 of the Act
16 Display of minutes
(1) Within 7 days after a meeting of the executive committee of a large strata scheme, the executive committee must:
(a) give each owner and executive committee member a copy of the minutes of the meeting,You could advise the EC that any decisions they have taken and any money spent was done illegally and if it happens again you will take action at CTTT to get the EC dismissed and forced to repay all illegal spending.
To take action at CTTT you would have to document all actions you have taken so far (letters emails, phone converstations) to resolve the issue. The first step is Concillation where the issues are tried to be resolved with a concillator and if this fails you would go then to Adjudication. Cost about $60 for each. The result is a foregone conclusion in your favour IMHO.
Also advise the SM of your intensions and see if that helps. Although the SM is better described as an administrator as they can make no real decision only the OC or EC can do that. In fact the SM might not even be given a copy of the Agenda or Minutes.
It’s the owners reasponsibility if it is within the lot, and if it breaches fire regulations and the owner dosn’t repair it the OC can repair it and charge the owner the cost of the repair.
Even if it was common property and it was damaged by a resident the OC could bill the resident the cost of the repair unless it was a genuine accident.
That is total rubbish. This is from the act:
78 Manner of levying contributions
(1) An owners corporation levies a contribution required to be paid to the administrative fund or sinking fund by an owner of a lot by serving on the owner a written notice of the contribution payable.
(2) Contributions levied by an owners corporation must be levied in respect of each lot and are payable (subject to this section and section 77) by the owners in shares proportional to the unit entitlements of their respective lots.Your SM should know better, this is a fundamental requirement of Strata, you cannot pick and choose who has to pay the levies, if a levy is approved everyone pays.
You need to speak to the new owners as the current owner has ZERO power to approve anything after settlement (and anything he did agree to would be nullified once settlement occurs).
The only people who can extend your lease after settlemenmt are the new owners.
see this post
If you want a bullet proof gold plated soloution the other posters are generally correct.
BUT I consider an informal arrangement perfectly acceptable so long as a majourity of the owners at a general meeting pass a motion approveing it and strict conditions are applied. The money should go into the Admin fund and it would be taxed at the company tax rate of 30%.
Even if one owner strongly objected he would have to win at CTTT to get the motion overturned and then the only penality might be you would have to stop the rental. It’s only if you ignored the CTTT ruling that you might be liable for a fine.
I’ve no idea what a licience is or how much they cost, but I suspect they would need to be drawn up by a lawyer costing mega bucks.
Don’t even consider Exclusive use motion as this is a permenent transfer of the room to the requester unless he pays the Strata market value for purchaseing the room.
Schedule 2 of the strata act says
17 Counting of votes on election of executive committee
(1) An election of members of the executive committee is to be decided according to a majority in number of the votes cast at the election with a person entitled to vote having one vote for each lot in respect of which the person is entitled to vote, unless a poll is demanded by a person present and entitled to vote at the meeting.
And if the intial decisions was to have 3 members I would assume you would need a motion on the Agenda to change this and that motion to be approved by a vote and untill that happens you need a committee of 3.
Do you have a SM or is it self managed??
From what you say I would expect the current committee to be invalid and unable to perform their duties as they were not duly elected. (advise them (and SM) that any spending they authorize might have to come out of their own pocket not the strata funds as they have no authority to spend strata funds).
Also before the agenda was sent out a request should have been sent round to all owners inviting them to submit motion and put their names forward to be on the committee.
@just get on with it said:
Could Kanga or anyone else out there advise how this is dealt with in Qld legislation?
In QLD you can vote by returing your Agenda suitably completed with how you wish to vote each item. So the agenda is in effect a voting paper.
If any motion is significently (not sure how we actually define this) changed the postal vote if it was voted for the motion (origional), now is declared against the changed motion.
@Austman said:
And once the NBN comes into an apartment’s area, the OC will have little choice but to connected it because all the existing phone and internet services will be switched off 18 months later.
The rate a which mobile phones / broardband is increaseing it might be the time to dump your phone line entirely when this happens. I agree in new building it can be installed efficiently cost wise but for older building it could cost a fortune to be benefit of very few. I do have a phone line (at the mo) but I use mobile broardband for internet access and it is more than adequate for my needs.
I wonder how many people actually need this super fast home internet. The gov seems very reluctant to inform us of how many have actually taken it up after it has been installed in their area (I suspect very few).
I agree with what Whale says but the Strata may be able to reduce the cost by claiming on their Insurance Policy, but if the damage is caused by Earth Movement then you need to check the Insurance policy PDS as it is a minefield of what is and is not covered under this event.
Even if it is not an insurance claim it is still Strata reasponsibility to fix.
The thing to look for is was this work authorized by the EC or OC via a valid motion of the EC or OC. Must be in the minutes of any EGM, AGM or EC meeting. The Chairman has NO special powers to authorize any spending (unless he has been granted this power at a EC or AGM again check minutes).
If this was authorized at a AGM or EGM then you are liable to pay the bill.
If it was authorized at a EC meeting you still might be liable it just depends on the spending limits of the EC at the time (I cannot find the default figure in the Strata Act but is is normally about No of lots x $200), but this can be changed by a motion at a AGM or EGM. The EC themselves cannot change this.
In a few instances EC members can be authorized to spend up to a certain figure, you need to ensure the Chairman didn’t have this authority.
This all assumes you don’t use the designs, if you do you are liable for the cost whether it was approved or not.
From Strata Schemes Management Regulation 2010
24 Attendance and representation
(1) A mediation session must be attended by each party or by a legal representative, or other representative, having authority to settle the matter.If they refuse to attend obtain this refusal in writing from the mediator and then proceed on to the Adjudication hearing and I would strongly suspect this would be taken into account by the Adjudicator as being unreasonable (so you’d get bronwie points).
The damage should be an insurance claim (unless they claim it was malicious) against Strata Insurance and the insurance firm would then take action against you to recover the cost BUT they would have to prove you were the cause (not just assume).
As for chooseing the 4K repair this was an OC decision and so you would have been able to vote on the motion that was put forward (should have been anyway). I don’t believe thay can refuse your vote just because of an unsubstantiated claim and you can get the adjudicator to consider this as well.
You can bring up multiple failures of the SM, EC and OC at the adjudication all for the same price $78.