[monkey_business]

@JimmyT said:

Regarding the possibility of NCAT ruling a claim as vexatious, it still requires engagement and a response of some kind, including appearing at the Tribunal (you could respond in writing, but that is risky).

A cleaner but harder to achieve outcome would be to get the owner declared a vexatious litigant by a higher court  

Agree. It is safer to have a representative attend in person. That way you can argue your point and explain things that are unclear in a written response. It is just a time consuming exercise but better be safe than to take the risk.

The other part that I am thinking of persuing is to have our EC representative bring it up to the judge at the tribunal about the number of vexatious cases. I’m guessing that  NCAT treats each case seperately with no reference back to previous cases that was raised with them from the same strata plan unless you explicitly point it out to them. This will hopefully raise some relevant alarm bells with them.

[monkey_business]

@JimmyT said:
You have to differentiate not attending mediation and not attending the tribunal.

The former is not compulsory and you would be entitled to write to Fair Trading and say you were not attending because the complainant was using Fair Trading as a form of harassment by wasting committee time (listing all the previous failed cases).

That is correct. This has been the line that we have taken. Everytime we get a request, we notify DoFT that we do not wish to attend. Its just time consuming and more admin for everybody to deal with. As far as I’m aware, DoFT is purely an attempt at “mediation”. Nothing is legally binding.

@JimmyT said:

For the Tribunal, I would be tempted to hire a lawyer to defend your position while making it clear before the hearing that you
a) would be demanding costs from the litigant and
b) would seek to have him declared a vexatious litigant by the Tribunal  

For the tribunal, I understand that decisions are legally binding so we actually have to attend to defend ourselves. We actually have already hired lawyers for this. The executives don’t have enough time to deal with it and also don’t want to risk stuffing up the argument/defense so prefer to have everything properly documented by professionals that should know what they are doing. Its just absurd that to apply to NCAT to initiate a case it costs something like $100 but to defend it will rack up thousands of dollars in legal fees.

Having said that, I’m not completely sure it is within NCATs jurisdiction to be able to declare someone as vexatious but I will definitely bring that up at our meetings. It never hurts to try.

Thanks for your help! Very useful posts and much appreciated

[monkey_business]

@tharra said:
Does NCAT have the ability to declare someone the equivalent of a vexatious litigant?

https://www.supremecourt.justice.nsw.gov.au/Pages/sco2_practiceprocedure/SCO2_vexatiousproceedings.aspx

Thanks. That is definitely something that I have not considered and may be worth looking into. Something for me to research and hopefully they would have something in place for this.

 

@tharra said:

Are the costs associated with all these actions documented? Sheeted back to Mr. A.?

The irony behind it is that Mr A is indirectly partially funding his own legal defence against himself via higher strata levies. He knows this but doesn’t care. The rest of the building though are sick of it. These costs are all well documented in minutes and cost agreements between relevant parties

 

@tharra said:

In the absence of any real advice apart from hang in there, I’d be ordering some nice bottles of wine & having some EC therapy sessions. Keep the EC members supported with their focus on the long term.  

You bet. Or to save it for that occasion that (hopefully sooner rather than later) Mr A decides to finally move on. The whole building has already agreed to throw a party when that happens!

[Author]

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