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I think that NSW is harder for advocates of a Yes vote/easier for No advocates all round. If you want to get your special resolution passed and there will be 25 No votes you need to get >75 Yes votes to win. In the ACT if there will be 25 No votes you need >25 Yes votes and >50 taking part in the meeting to win.
A few years ago we encouraged members to take part in a vote, even if they were ambivalent, even if they would be formally included in the meeting but then abstain. Like on many issues, every person in the minority who opposed the proposal was going to vote. Others whose support for the proposal was less than passionate could not be counted on to show up. Then there were a few who were happy to go with the majority either way and very unlikely to take part. Those opposing were outraged at the tactic of encouraging members to take part in the democratic process! The vote went 51 yes, 34 No, 3 Abstain. 34/88 is >1/3 so the motion failed.
“ We must bear in mind, then, that there is nothing more difficult and dangerous, or more doubtful of success, than an attempt to introduce a new order of things in any state. For the innovator has for enemies all those who derived advantages from the old order of things, whilst those who expect to be benefited by the new institutions will be but lukewarm defenders. This indifference arises in part from fear of their adversaries who were favoured by the existing laws, and partly from the incredulity of men who have no faith in anything new that is not the result of well-established experience. Hence it is that, whenever the opponents of the new order of things have the opportunity to attack it, they will do it with the zeal of partisans, whilst the others defend it but feebly, so that it is dangerous to rely upon the latter.”
Niccolò Machiavelli
The PrinceThe proposal was a complete ‘no brainer’ good idea and the ACT Unit Titles Act was under review shortly after. The Act was amended, in part due to our experience. Since 31st March the same sort of proposal only requires an ordinary resolution. So we put a revised version of the same proposal to a meeting two weeks ago. This time it got up 77:13 (and 3 abstains that didn’t matter because it was an ordinary resolution this time).
We have some parking issues of our own at the moment and consequently I happen to have read the Australian Standards on parking spaces. Generally spaces are 5.4m long so if he is sticking out further than that from the other end of the space it is probably not what was intended/designed. Depending on the width of spaces there is also an ‘aisle’ width required. Is the fence a later addition? Perhaps the aisle in which you have to turn and drive in and out is too narrow for the parking space width. Also, if you are the end of a row there should be an extra allowance on the end of the aisle (a shallow bay) or in the width of the space.
If this person has a longer vehicle he might not want to swap if yours is the harder space to get out of. On the other hand, perhaps you could let him have the bikes on your side so he can park further in but still have the bikes somewhere safe?
Is there enough width to have the bikes on the side?
The Unit Plan is the definitive document to show the parking space size and if he is not entirely in the parking space you have something then to go on for a complaint. Executive committee members or the managing agent should have a copy of the plan.
Boy, that could make it really hard to get a special resolution up. In the ACT it is defined differently and a bit easier to pass. Here a special resolution requires both a) a majority in favour, and b) fewer than 1/3 opposed, of those present and entitled to vote, in person or by proxy. Thus, in our case, we have 105 owners but 5 neither show up nor put in a proxy vote, so 100 people are ‘present’ at the meeting, 51 vote yes, 33 vote no, and the rest abstain and the motion would pass (33 is less than a third of 100). On the other hand, if 21 don’t show up or put in a proxy vote, there would be 84 people at the meeting, 51 vote yes, 33 vote no, it would fail (33 is more than a third of 84). The proxy/absentee voting forms we use have yes/no/abstain options on them for each motion because it is quite possible that a member would want to vote yes or no on some motions but abstain on others, perhaps not caring either way, or perhaps not objecting strongly enough to want to prevent a motion passing if a majority support it.
I think in the ACT (so perhaps in NSW) there are limits on the ability for the developer to lock the OC into service contracts during the period when the developer has control.
I would expect an EC member who could supply a commercial service to the OC to present on what he/she can offer but then absent himself from the meeting while the decision is made about whether to go with that offer or do something else. It would be minuted when that EC member was present and not present for which decisions. We have taken the same approach when it happened to be an EC member applying to make changes to their unit.
More generally, in some circumstances, handled transparently, as above, it might be quite advantageous and not inappropriate. An EC or OC member with some relevant expertise might offer their services at cost and consequently be cheaper than anyone else. The member would have an interest along with all the other owners in seeing the job done well. Still, it needs to be handled carefully and diligently.
@JimmyT said:…To give a hypothetical example, a resident complains that a wall looks unsafe, the EC hire a builder to look at at and he says that not only is it unsafe, it’s dangerous but he can fix it for, say, $10K. The EC thinks $10K is way more than they are prepared to pay and instead decide to do nothing. Right there, they have not only breached their legal duty to maintain and repair common property, they have probably breached the terms of their insurance by deliberately and recklessly ignoring professional advice. If the wall falls down and injures someone, the individual EC members could be paying damages out of their own pockets. If the injured person is working in the building then under the terms of the Work Health Safety legislation, they could even go to jail.
That is spookily close to the situation we had except that the EC decided we had to do something about the situation immediately and would spend that amount. Some owners objected to the spending. We asked in legal advice “What liability might we have been exposed to if we had not decided to act ASAP” The answer included a liability just for exposing people to a risk of serious harm; we would have been liable even if the wall did not fall down and no one was hurt. (the wall was holding up a roof BTW).
Just yesterday a neighbour mentioned to me having been surprised to see a bare bottom through the open door of a unit. We had a bit of laugh about wording of a vague, euphemistic, mock-serious item “Residents are reminded that…” to put in the newsletter that could be amusing for inviting more speculation among the local gossips than the original event warranted.
More seriously, I don’t think there is much you can do about your more casual neighbours if they are staying within the bounds of the law.
@basjan27 said:
…we’re worried the majority on the EC will delay a requisitioned EGM until after they sign off very expensive piece of work, which the majority of OC want to stop…Why would the EC want to rush into a bit of expensive work? I only comment because last year the above quote could have come from one of our owners while I was on an EC that wanted to do some urgent work without waiting for a general meeting.
In our case we would have waited till an AGM to approve a budget in the usual manner except that the work was an urgent repair that we believed the OC was responsible for which if not performed immediately had potential to kill someone. As it happened, moving as briskly as we could, by the time work could start, the AGM rolled around anyway. The person who was outraged about the work lobbied dug up some astonishingly poor advice from a former managing agent who had advised her as part of an earlier EC to ignore the early signs of the problem years earlier. She did have my sympathy in as much as the earlier committee was acting on advice that they should have been able to rely on. Nonetheless, rather than listening to a new view she muddied the waters so much for the rest of the owners that we needed heavy duty, formal legal advice to clarify what had been obvious to the more recent EC about our responsibilities. In the end the AGM was convinced by the recent EC and only that earlier EC member and one other in the room voted against proceeding with the works.
Maybe this isn’t your situation, but sometimes an EC just has to go ahead regardless and work out who pays later. Teys Lawyers put this well in a training note: “Managing the risk of failing to repair and maintain common property”
We had a situation in which a defect of the common property was responsible for damage to private property. The EC decided to repair the damage as a matter of urgency because it was a safety issue also. Other owners challenged our decision and we took legal advice. The advice was unequivocal. The OC was liable for damage caused within the unit area.
As a treasurer I generally ask for a copy of the accounts a few days before an EC meeting. The usual result is that I can say to the meeting that things look to be generally on track with the budget, perhaps that we are a little over spent on one item but a bit under on something else. Perhaps that I have sent a polite reminder to the few units that are shown as behind on levies. Our manager usually produces a comprehensive set of accounts within 24 hours. I think it is simply a matter of calling up the right OC in their software, hitting print and sending me a PDF version. It is then easy for me to see that we have paid (say) 6 of the 12 usual monthly accounts from our gardener and consequently have spent almost half of what we have budgeted for gardening and so appear to be on track for that item, and so on.
It does not seem to be beyond what the managing agent expects and not hard for me to interpret in spite of little relevant background expertise (biochemist, not accountant!).
struggler said:
So perhaps I could ask the new guy if he could use my services in some way. Without seeming like a grumpy old fart who has seen too much!
Sound reasonable to me. Just let him know that you were on the EC for many years and are now taking a break. Say that there are quite a few issues that might seem simple but have some history and offer to fill him in. If he has any sense he'll be happy to hear it but will exercise some judgement of his own to work out over time who to believe. With luck he will be sensible enough to not leap to any conclusions to soon. Anyway, talking is almost always better than not talking.
The IT 2505 tax ruling is the necessary one to read. However, it is rather old and strata legislation has changed in various places. A key difference point to note is whether common property is held by the OC as 'agent' for the owners or as 'trustee' for the owners. At the time IT2505 was written the ACT strata title legislation had the word 'trustee' but more recently has had 'agent'. The reason this matters is that non-mutual income derived from property held as trustee is taxed at the corporate rate in the hands of the OC, IE simple and easy. Non-mutual income derived from common property held as agent has to be divided up in proportion to unit entitlements and each owner has to declare their portion on their private tax returns.
Crucially, the ATO gave our OC a ruling that we could resolve to purchase solar electric equipment that would attract a feed-in tariff to be held as trustee for the owners, even though common property is generally held as agent under the ACT Unit Titles Act. The result was that solar feed-in income is worth doing for our OC because all benefit equally in proportion to unit entitlements and there is little administrative burden. Held as agent we would have had to issue a statement to each of over 100 owners who no doubt differ in their tax circumstances and would benefit to differing degrees. This could well have been enough to make the proposal unworkable.
The ruling was provided to the review of the ACT Unit Titles legislation which has just been amended to now explicitly allow OCs to purchase sustainability equipment to be held by the OC as trustee for the owners which greatly eases the administrative burden and forms part of a suite of amendments to make it easier for OCs to install sustainability infrastructure.
A new guy only there for 6 months probably would like to meet the neighbours. Go and have a chat. Keep to the facts of what needs doing and why. Avoid anything that might sound bitchy but why not mention that some things have been on the agenda for quite a while without any apparent action?
As an EC member it is a common frustration that we have members who will gossip and complain to anyone except the EC. I have lost count of the number of times we could have had a simple fix for a concern if only people would tell us. On the other hand, we do have a few I would rather hear less from!
The new guy might have lots of previous strata experience and be able to get things done, or he might be keen but naive, need an ally and some hand-holding. Either way, people prepared to go on the EC need some nurturing!
Good Luck.
The new ACT Unit Title (Management) Act 2011 has a Code of Conduct for ECs and another for Managing Agents included at the end. If NSW doesn't have anything like this (I don't know) an OC could decide to adopt its words in any case I would expect. It might be a non-specific, non-confrontational way to put concerns on the table. Also, when the Act was tabled, Teys lawyers published a set of notes on each of the code of conduct points. I expect you request a set from them.
Also depends what sort of wasp. Many species are innocuous but interesting members of the local fauna.
I don't know how things are in NSW. In the ACT the EC has to approve the proxy and absentee voting forms for a general meeting. The motion would have been on the forms at least as a numbered motion if the EC had met to decide the agenda to be mailed out with the proxy form to all owners. The manager could not then take the motion off. On the other hand, if this is just a motion requiring an ordinary resolution to have the general meeting endorse the EC's decision to remove the shed from common property or require its removal, that motion could be put from the floor of the general meeting (at least in the ACT, I think).