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… 40 Owners could all vote for a motion and 10 other Owners at the AGM itself, opposed to the motion but knowing they could not defeat it, could simply amend it in a way to negate it…
I don’t know if there is anything specific in NSW legislation on this but all general guidance on meeting procedure would tell you that such an amendment would be invalid and should not be allowed by the chair of the meeting. Where I am, our meeting notice includes a statement for the benefit of anyone cating an absentee vote that their vote will still count if a motion is amended and that the chair will only accept a motion to amend if ‘the amendment is within the scope of the original motion and does not alter its nature’, which is a quote from Joske’s book on Meeting Procedure.
So, a valid amendment might be to change a notice period from 7 days to 14 days for some thing the meeting decides to do but the motion would still be about doing some thing and giving people reasonable notice of when it is going to happen. An invalid amendment would be to insert the word ‘not’ into a motion to do some thing.
The OC can bill a unit owner for an expense that is the ‘fault’ of the unit owner. However, the general meeting was called in response to a petition by >25% of owners, which is one of the mechanisms by which a general meeting can be called. So, the meeting has been called legitimately. I doubt it could be characterised as a ‘wilful or negligent act or omission’. I can’t see that meeting costs can be sheeted home to a subset of the unit owners.
The EC engaged those various professionals, presumably also not a ‘wilful or negligent act’. The EC can exercise functions of the OC, which includes getting professional advice and strategic planning. So, those would seem to be legitimate costs for the OC as a whole, so that ends up on levies for everyone ultimately.
As for ‘in the first instance’, I suspect that the EC is hoping that at least some of the OC’s costs will be recoverable from owner with the arrears. Failing to pay one’s levies and persisting in failing to pay, so much so that the OC needed to incur costs on professional advice on debt recovery, could be found to have been ‘wilful or negligent’.
s.31 from the UTMA:
Recovery of expenditure resulting from member or unit
occupier’s fault
This section applies if an owners corporation for a units plan has in carrying out its functions incurred an expense, or carried out work, that is necessary because of—
(a) a wilful or negligent act or omission of a member of the corporation, or an occupier of the member’s unit; or
(b) a breach of its rules by a member of the corporation, or an occupier of the member’s unit.
The amount spent or the cost of the work is recoverable by the owners corporation from the member as a debt.
If the owners corporation recovers an amount under subsection (2) from a member for an act, omission or breach of an occupier of the member’s unit, the member may recover the amount from the occupier as a debt.
In this section:
expense, includes a reasonable legal expense reasonably incurred, including a legal expense relating to a proceeding in the ACAT.
work, carried out by an owners corporation, means maintenance or anything else the corporation is authorised under this Act to do.
I’d suggest the chair needs to have a quiet but firm word to the other committee members about the committee’s responsibilities without the dominant member present. The chair needs to make sure they have the support of a clear majority of the EC. Then, the chair needs to enforce some meeting discipline, have the EC make the necessary decisions, have action items assigned to committee members and minute it all. EC decisions generally only need a simple majority. If necessary the chair has a casting vote too.
…Off to see the Strata Manager for advice? …
While the Strata Manager is not a lawyer, they will have seen plenty of different parking rules and many instances of people trying to enforce or evade them. You pay them for their experience, so yes, definitely, run it by them as well.
I doubt that the police would be interested. Ultimately it comes down to whether other owners in the building regard their use and amenity of the common property to be diminished by this person parking in one of the visitor spaces. If it is rarely causing a problem for other people’s visitors, maybe the committee has judged it to not be worth pursuing or they have it low on a priority list of matters they are attending to.
If you don’t get a response, you could raise use of the visitor parking spaces as a matter for discussion at the next AGM. If others share your concern, you could offer to investigate solutions.
If nobody can see a problem with it, I can’t see that you need a lawyer. Send a draft to all owners and ask for comment. If none of them can see a problem, then it is very likely that there is no problem and it will pass at a general meeting. It’s probably not rocket science and sounds like it is well considered having reference to DA conditions etc.
The worst that could happen is that you try to enforce the new rule and the validity of the rule is challenged and it turns out to have some flaw. If that happens, you amend the rule to fix the flaw.
A couple of points to consider…
Those all seem like they would be easy for reasonable people to accommodate. Eg. On shared use of a power point, if someone else wants to use the same power point, they could also be given permission on the same terms that it is a short-term and ad hoc solution until a more comprehensive solution for EV charging is arrived at. The current two users could alternate which days they use the power point or agree that each is happy for the other to unplug them if their charge is finished.
If demand is such that such easy accommodation is no longer sufficient, that is a clear signal to the OC that there is a need for a longer term solution for vehicle charging and that there is likely to be significant recognition of the need for that better solution, whatever it might be in the particular building.
It seems utterly unreasonable to not allow charging of a mobility scooter. The most generous thing I can think of is that the EC is busy researching and discussing about how to manage the introduction of electric vehicle charging and has not yet come to a conclusion so they don’t want to make a commitment now.
However, the solution for this, whether for a mobility scooter or any other sort of electric vehicle, where there are probably only one or a few people interested at this time, is to give temporary permission with conditions. One of the conditions would be that the permission can be rescinded at any time such as when it is no longer appropriate because some more permanent solution for vehicle charging has been arrived at.
A mobility scooter would take up very little room and little electricity while charging. I would suggest that a reasonable estimate of the amount of electricity needed could be used to arrive at some amount to be paid as reimbursement to the Owners Corporation. It is bound to be a trivially small amount (a few 10s of dollars a year, I’d guess) but it might shut up the mean-spirited types who worry about people getting something for nothing.
The amount taken by an electric car, on the other hand, would not be trivial and might amount to some hundreds of dollars-worth per year [eg. (say) 10,000km/year x (say) 15kWh/100km x (say) 25c/kWh = $375]. Even so, a reasonable estimate could be made and even rounded up to make sure the OC is not out of pocket for a short-term, ad hoc solution while it works out how it is going to roll out charging when there are more than just a few wanting to use a power point.
It depends what your Owners Corporation rules say. If you have default rule 4, then erections and alterations require a general meeting resolution. However, default rule 4 is one of the rules that an OC may amend by special resolution.
So, it is possible that you have an amended rule for Erections and Alterations that allows the Executive Committee to approve some or all sorts of alterations, with or without guidelines from general meeting resolutions that constrain the EC in what it can approve. Common constraints on the EC that an OC might have imposed include only being able to approve a unit alteration if materials and colours remain consistent with the rest of the scheme or subject to consultation with neighbours or if certain architectural features are preserved.
Perhaps all that is needed is a resolution to approve charging at up to 15A from each unit’s individual supply with the addition of a 15A socket or a wall-mounted EVSE outlet limited to 15A in each unit’s parking space with all repair and maintenance the responsibility of the relevant unit owner.
AS3000 rules say that 15A sockets are supposed to be on their own circuits. So in this situation, you should have a switchboard in each parking space, one breaker for the 15A socket and another breaker for everything else.
Not hard to include two breakers when splitting the 20A supply between a 15A socket (or hard-wired EVSE set to 15A) and the lights.
So what options do the new owners have till we get sorted with the bylaw review ?
An electrician could inspect the power point circuit in the parking area. They might find that the circuit has cabling and a circuit breaker sufficient for 10A to be drawn simultaneously from some fraction of the power sockets. So, the OC would know how many EVs could be accommodated in a short term, ad hoc solution before something more permanent was needed. 10A charging from an ordinary portable charge cord in an ordinary wall socket is adequate and very much better than having no charging at home.
An electrician could put a simple kWh counter in line with each outlet that is to be used by each of the first several EV owners at their (minor) cost. This would enable the OC to be reimbursed for the electricity cost. The approval of this should make it clear that permission for all this may be rescinded at any time and is only granted until EV numbers increase to the point that a better, long-term solution is needed and has been researched, funded and installed.
Our block of 21 units has an individual lighting circuit to each parking bay, which is connected to a separate 20A breaker for each unit on the sub-boards. Initially there was just a switch for the lights, but some units have had power points installed.
Absolutely ideal situation to be in!
Lights in each parking bay would take almost nothing. A 15A socket would allow charging with the 10Amp portable EVSE charge cord that is supplied with most electric cars or can be purchased for a few hundred dollars. 15A charging, 50% faster, with a socket and 15A portable charge cord or a hard-wired unit set to a 15A limit is possible and they also don’t cost much. By limiting charging to 15A max. the building is unlikely to experience over-load problems and there might be that much new spare capacity anyway if people have replaced resistance heaters with heat pumps and got other more efficient electric devices.
Residents could be informed about options for time of use or other tariff structures that would provide a financial incentive to avoid charging on the evening peak.
The Owners Corporation has no administrative burden billing for charging from the common property supply.
Residents can proceed to getting an EV when it suits them rather than some being held back while others are not yet ready.
Perhaps all that is needed is a resolution to approve charging at up to 15A from each unit’s individual supply with the addition of a 15A socket or a wall-mounted EVSE outlet limited to 15A in each unit’s parking space with all repair and maintenance the responsibility of the relevant unit owner.
Also, Owners Corporations in NSW should look out for announcement of an EV charging grant scheme that is under development at the moment. Late last year there was a consultation program between the NSW government department developing the program and representatives of various interested bodies. The general thrust of it was that the government wanted to assist in the creation of a collection of demonstration projects that would cover a representative range of building types, sizes, locations etc.
… only a registered energy provider can charge for electricity. So the OC cant put an electricty meter on a power point and charge a lot owner…
I think this only applies when supplying ‘premises’ eg. residential units. The Australia Energy Regulator has strict requirements for supplying premises. They are much more relaxed about supplying vehicles. The rationale is that premises need more consumer protections than vehicles because only the latter have the option to go elsewhere if they don’t like the deal.
With only ten units, I’d suggest that you could knock on the other 6 doors and ask to have a chat about your concerns. If you find a few allies, I would then talk directly to the 3 EC members, knowing and able to say that other OC members share your concerns. If you had 100s of units, it would be harder, but with only 10, I suggest informal face to face discussion is the best place to start.