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Hi Webwrx
It’s a bit of a grey area given that it has been maintained for a period of time – however generally speaking, the actual car spaces are on title and hence your responsibility (much like your balcony – you wouldn’t really expect the OC to mop the tiles on the balcony floor), but here’s the clincher – the OC is still technically responsible for the cleaning of the visitors car spaces and all of the driveways/bitumen in between the car spaces as this is common property.
I would point this out to the EC and ask what savings, if any, they will get from cleaning parts of the car park (but not others) versus the trade off in having the scheme look shabby: leaves from an owners car space would blow around anyway, so it seems to be counter-intuitive and quite pedantic……
Hi Struggler
From your post, it actually sounds like your friend didn’t get any approval prior to being issued the notice to comply.
While approval can’t be ‘unreasonably witheld’ according to the bylaws, if the OC has not had any opportunity to grant or deny permission, then a notice to comply is probably fair enough as your friend simply turned up with the dogs.
Prior to mediation, I would advise your friend to approach the EC to either get approval, conditions for approval (or their reasons for rejection) and then, if it is warranted, take it to mediation.
Given that you are on the EC, the fact that he is an office- bearer affords him no greater rights than you or the other members of the committee.
Some options to consider:
1)Issue a notice to comply regarding noise and common property.
2)Take him to the CTTT (you personally or the OC)
3)Get the numbers together and vote him off the EC
4)Repeat steps 1-2 as necessary (and it sounds like it will need repeating with this chap) until you get satisfaction
Good luckAn owner has the right to secure his/her lot, but there are some over-riding caveats.
1) You can’t breach fire regulations by securing external doors and windows, so certain door and window lock types that are sold through hardware stores may actually breach code;
2) Enclosing a patio, which is usually considered common property (albeit for exclusive use of the lot owner) is not an owners’ right. You would need your OC to have a special resolution passed to allow you to do this
In and of itself, I honestly don’t think that having public housing tenants will devalue your property.
When a prospective owner does the usual strata searches, neither the landlord names nor the owner-occupier names are listed; only the % (or absolute number) of units that are owner occupied vs leased.
No prospective owner could glean anything from that information.
However, if the department of housing tenants have caused a lot of issues and disputes which have been dealt with at a formal level, then of course this will turn up and may have a bearing on the value of your property; but any infractions/CTTT action will also show up, so the owners who laid illegal IKEA floors and were forced to rip them up will show as will the owner who sub-let his car space and now permanently parks in the visitor spot…it’s all relative. To the point of overcrowding, you are more likely to have that via private rentals with uni students than department of housing tenants.
As has been noted, you can issue a notice to comply. The department has to abide by the rules of the complex. Additionally their tenants have a social charter that means the department can (and will) evict them and refuse additional public housing for serious matters.
The default amount is $12,500 which we left as is at our block.
Your amounts seem on the low and cautious side.
So far this year, we have had to spend the following: and in all honesty, having to call an AGM to spend money to repair a broken hot water boiler ($6K) and replacing the main automatic garage door while waiting on an insurance claim ($9K) would have put the building’s residents at risk.
However, we have 5 on the EC and at least 3 have to agree to the quotes prior to spending and everything is in writing. There is an unwritten rule that the OC is involved from $10K up to $12.5K
In addition, the new WHS rules mean that a lot of items now need to be attended to fairly quickly and the additional steps involved in complying to the laws have added to the costs that a building will incur. By setting the dollar threshold so low, the OC could inadvertantly set itself up to be in a position of breaching laws….
Hi Tiaeki
I am still always shocked when I see the depths of incivility that some will descend to.
Normally I would advocate talking with the owner in question, but this sounds like it has gone well beyond that point. There are three avenues available to you:
1) You could issue a notice to comply (it comes under the area of not interfering with ‘peaceful enjoyment’ under the model bylaws) against those tenants making the threats, however the level of violence and agression would make me go straight for the second option as well;
2) Get the police involved with the tenants – their behaviour is intolerable and illegal;
3) Try and obtain proof about the malicious owner – then threaten civil action against this libelious and slanderous behaviour
Hopefully that approach will help….of course you have to weigh up the alternative of taking action which can potentially inflame the situation vs doing nothing, but above all, good luck.
We have had sonme rent assistance tennants in our building for some time. Some have been excellent, others not so.
It is department policy to house tenants in private rentals. I understand that they are no longer building many new housing commission projects and aim to integrate housing NSW residents within the community.
The strata/OC cannot stop this from occuring via a by-law as such action would be discriminatory.
However, housing NSW tenants have to abide by a ‘social charter’ which in effect makes their conditions for good neighbourly behaviour far more onerous than a private rental tenant or indeed an owner. If, therefore, the tenants constantly misbehave, then the department will act fairly swiftly once they receive substantiated complaints.
Hi justsaying
There are a few points to tackle here, but generally speaking there is no law which states that something must be finished to a ‘high standard’ as that isn’t really measurable and is highly subjective based on the amount paid, the individual’s expectations, promises made and so on. Therefore, the EC is not obliged to adhere to a non-existant law.
That said, the builder, regardless of what was contained within the quote is responsible to ensure that the work is carried out to code and that usually entails Australian standards for workmanship and product specification. A solictor would make the assumption that work carried out is ‘to code’ and leave the rest to the parties to sort out rather than stipluating the quality of the work (unless that was the cause for using the solicitor in the firts place).
If it is quoted that ‘X’ will be done with the drain, and ‘X’ is in fact to code without specifying what is to be done with the rest of the job (or vague words such as ‘repair/replace surrounding tiles’ rather than ‘make good existing surface with matching tiles’) then you may in fact need to obtain a new quote to get this job done.
If, as you say, the drain is higher than the surface, then it is unlikely to be to code. If you used a licensed builder then their work will have a warranty. Get them back to fix the drain: maybe they will repair the tiles/pavers to your satisfaction while they are at it, but you will likely have to pay for materials as it doesn’t sound like that formed part of the initial quote.
Under normal circumstances this would be a good idea, but I would be very hesitant to get a lawyers letter drafted for this matter: it could seriously backfire.
In your initial post you state that you have obtained an arborists report. This could not conceivably have been done without the arborist being able to be very close to the tree to inspect it.
Unless the tree is absolutely on your property line (you don’t actually state this or in fact what issues the tree is causing or may start to cause), the arborist and yourself would technically have had to trespass on your neighbours land to get close enough to actually inspect the tree.
As you have then gone and raised the stakes by sending a lawyers letter, the strata, when they do respond, will need to do so in kind (ie with another lawyers letter)….if you or the arborist trespassed on their land in the first instance, can you see how the exchanges will likely play out?
Strata corporations do not have a community charter and are therefore notoriously slow to deal with. If you really want an answer, ask for the strata managers details from the owner that you have been talking to and then pay a visit to his/her office.
Hi Diane
At least the OC is doing the right thing in offering to pay your costs. I would get quotes very quickly to replace the items and submit them to the Strata manager and advise the Exec Committee at the time you submit those quotes.
Also, document exactly what was lost due to the contractors and how it happened. That way the Owners Corp may be able to claim from the contractors (although that is easier said than done).
I would then also put a caveat on allowing the contractor access to your yard without supervision to avoid further damage.
As it isn’t your tree, you will be waiting for quite some time.
Just because you believe it’s dangerous (an arborist – in order to protect their ability to professionally insure themselves, also errs on the side of caution) doesn’t mean it has to be removed post haste.
Same applies even if it is listed as ‘weed’ within your LGA: it doesn’t mean the owners have to remove it post haste, as there are different classifications of weeds, and in some councils an established tree can be both a ‘weed’ and fall under the tree preservation act simply because of its age and size.
Assuming the owners corp actually wants their tree that is on their property removed, they will need to find funds (your offer to pay some of the costs notwithstanding). This can take up to 6 months.
I assume you are in NSW? If the tree is still standing after the freakish storms and 110+km winds that battered NSW for two days at the start of the month, then the tree is probably fine, which means that the owners corp may also have a harder time getting individual owners to agree to remove the tree. For individual owners, that tree may provide privacy, shade, etc, etc.
My honest advice would be to let it rest and save yourself some angst as they are under no obligation to remove a tree on their property.
The strata manager is probably incorrect.
In almost all schemes – you will of course need to check your bylaws – the balcony area is usually common property, even though it is intended for exclusive use of the lot owner.
Therefore, this issue of water penetration from one piece of common property to the other is an OC problem: the EC can either elect to remove the mould on an ad-hoc basis or address the drainage issue more permanently.
The latter is usually preferable – water pooling on concrete permanently tends to damage the reinforcing over time and lead to very expensive concrete cancer which can spread throughout the building. Obviously if the balcony is timber, then of course it means the timber is prone to rot.
I would talk with the EC if possible to avoid the Strata manager altogether.
Good luck
Hello concerned,
You mention in your first post that it was ‘noted’ that the tree was the owners responsibility. It doesn’t sound like there a bylaw enacted to enforce this?
While you say the council has a record that the tree is the owners responsibility, that is probably more to do with the fact that the tree is registered with council (being 25m+) and has to be in the ground ‘somewhere’ on enclosed land rather than an OC bylaw transferring the responsibility to the lot owner: councils – particularly the department that looks after trees and tree preservation – generally are not concerned with that.
If there is no specific bylaw or absolutely specific clause in the sale document then really the absolute bulk of this tree is always going to be common property. The owner is responsible for everything from the ground up to about 3m; the remaining 22m with all the branches and limbs + the roots that extend everywhere else are the OC responsibility.
Inclined to agree with Peter C
If in any doubt, always charge interest from the later period specified.
In this instance, the OC will act like any other corporate body which does not specifiy credit provision/default terms above and beyond the minimum ‘interest payable’ clauses.
The general tests for charging ad-hoc fees and interest payments is whether the business (in this case the OC), by going about collecting the unpaid monies, actually incurred a cost in doing so. As you would not normally have started collecting monies during the grace period, then the answer is that you would not be in a position to charge for it.