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I have just followed Sir Humphrey’s advice and placed two specific motions on the agenda of a committee meeting after the Chair had several pot shots at me (by email, silly man). The pot shots were in response to my daring to complain to NSW Fair Trading about a lack of proper meeting process (making decisions on non-agenda items mostly).
The next meeting is a month away so will not know the outcome until then, but in the meantime the behaviour has stopped and several committee members are rather red-faced and embarrassed and they are now buckling down to deal with my complaint.
You don’t have to use SCA standard agreement. Our SM agreement ‘liability’ clause (no 9 in our agreement) begins with –
“Except to the extent that the relevant liability is caused by the Agent’s negligence or dishonesty and to the extent permitted by law, the Scheme releases the Agent from and indemnifies the Agent in respect of ……”
I agree with JT and Sir Humphrey.
Defects are ‘systemic’ not isolated issues – so if only one lot has a problem then there is no defect.
We are a scheme of 245 lots and most times have access to a ‘function’ room, at no cost, which is in another part of our estate.
However, several times the room has not been available and we have held general meetings (60-70 attendees) in our gardens, or in the visitor carpark (areas roped off). We own our own portable tables and chairs.
Attendees often bring food and drink to share.
There is no way, our scheme would book a restaurant or pay for the hire of a room so we have had to be inventive. The carpark looked very nice one time when it was close to xmas.
Committee meetings are usually held in the gardens or if raining we squeeze into building management office where the first four arrivals get a seat and the rest stand.
Committee is also getting better at skype conferencing.
We have had three wins at Fair Trading/NCAT by going through their mediation process and arguing the right to peaceful enjoyment, rather than right to have non-carpet flooring. On all three occasions we obtained recommendations/orders to have flooring removed and reinstalled.
The key component that led to our wins was utilising a simple noise test (walking around in high heels, dropping keys, moving furniture), witnessed by independent persons (non neighbours, building management, committee members), making a report and going from there.
Needs the cooperation of all parties, but if cooperation is not there I think you will find that would be looked on unfavourably by Fair Trading/NCAT.
At a recent safety inspection we were advised:
External doorways (entry to carpark) – “Please ensure that the mat obstructing walkway in front of Unit xxxx and elsewhere throughout the complex are removed as soon as possible, as this currently represents a minor tripping / fire emergency / personal injury hazard”
and
Internal doorways/hallways – “We recommend that the door mats are replaced with low profile, non-curl, non-slip floor mats in the internal doorways throughout the complex”.
Our strata manager attempted to do a similar thing – but when questioned what they were actually doing to ensure our scheme “complied” with the new legislation it turned out they were ‘consolidating bylaws into a word format‘.
As Secretary of our large scheme, I was able to provide such a document for free – including LPI copies of registration (57 bylaws) – so that ended that.
Perhaps you need to ask what it is your strata manager is actually doing? Then you can decide if the fee is fair and reasonable or not.
I agree that managers are treating their clients badly when they apply extra fees without proper consultation.
Couple of points – ‘ensure your animal is under control’ – implies that your dog is not on a leash? As far as I understand the term, any dog not on a leash is viewed as not being under the control of its owner – so the strata manager may have a point.
“that we must ‘clean up after your animal’ – how about taking a bottle of water with you on your walks and ‘flushing’ the area urinated on? Shouldn’t need a large bottle for a small dog.
Certainly in our strata, unleashed and unaccompanied animals are at risk of being removed and owners served a breach notice. You don’t say whether you allow your dog to wander on its own.
By the way, I used to love sitting on the lawns of a local park, resting against a beautiful large tree and reading a book – but the smell of dog urine has driven me away.
As Secretary of a large strata, I have found that rarely do people complain over absolutely nothing, so you need to find a way to resolve the issues, rather than argue they are not a problem in the first place.
Good luck.
After 4 years of using BuildingLink ($2 per lot/month), a separate committee discussion forum (free), a separate invoicing system (provided by SM) and more recently a separate voting site ($300 per year), an all-in-one package is appealing.
However, if our experience is anything to go by, the success of an all-in-one solution will depend on the ‘smarts’ of the users involved and not necessarily prove to be better than having a number of dedicated programs that can work together but independently if required. As ‘Happy strata’ stated garbage in, garbage out and often bears no relation to the ability of the software itself.
For example:
Strata Manager – in our case, will not use our management software so committee is constantly comparing two strata rolls. This is a time-wasting nuisance that we can see no way round this in the foreseeable future. We like our SM otherwise.
Committee members – management software offers a very good general forum but a mediocre committee forum (time restrictions for one).
Building Manager – maintenance and building-wide communications via management software are excellent.
Communication – SMS or email messages are wonderful – but can be over-used by over-enthusiastic residents. Our ‘marketplace’ was subjected to 25 posts by one resident in 5 minutes a couple of days ago – leading a number of other residents to ‘unsubscribe’.
Voting – we have had recent conversations with a voting service about linking to our management software – but that has gone into the too hard basket, A simple workaround exporting/importing the strata roll into a dedicated voting site worked a treat.
Document library – some users cannot spell! So documents can be archived all over the place.
We have also had the experience of losing data following a falling out with a single provider.
So, for what it is worth, when considering an all-in-one package caution should prevail.