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On the face of it you seem to have paid a lot of money and you don't have title documents to prove it and now the holder of the title has sold to someone else. I would be talking to a lawyer immediately. Did anyone do conveyancing for you? If so, they might have been negligent. I would be talking to a different lawyer from the first one if you used a lawyer then.
Billen Ben said:
In our latest set of EC minutes can be found a motion (introduced motion not from the agenda) to put $3000 in the hands of our Hall Committee to “pay for invoices and costs of workers….”. The motion passes unanimously.
So… Did the budget approved at the last AGM include $3000 for whatever is being done to the hall? If yes, I suppose the EC can approve its being managed this way. If no, I don't think it can just hand out $3000 unless there is a compelling case like the roof about to collapse or something else that might be dangerous or prevent a much greater cost later.
Billen Ben said:
So what is the situation when there is no fence, never has been, between a lot and the common property and the owner wants to erect a fence … is it 50-50 between the owner and the OC?
In our OC established practice is that any owner wanting a fence pays for it themselves, can be approved by the EC if they consult with nearby units and abide with the limited range of styles that have been approved by general meetings. The OC derives no benefit from the fence and our development documents generally discourage them.
I know the problem of burning through people prepared to be on the EC and we have a 3x bigger pool to call on. The present EC are hanging in and slowly winning a bit of ground with each battle but it is a ridiculous amount of work for volunteers. I like to think the small but noisy group who have opposed every sensible move of the last few years is gradually getting discredited. However, we have the high ground on being on the EC. I guess from their point of view we are the clique who has taken over, certainly that is the rhetoric put about. It would be harder from the outside. Unless things are really desperate I would suggest tackling one achievable issue at a time and make sure you go to the general meeting with all the expert opinion readily to hand etc. Get a couple of allies and don't exhaust yourself on every issue all at once. Pick the issue that will make the others look most silly and irresponsible.
For the serious pedant about flags:
https://www.flagaustnat.asn.au/protocol.php
This confirms the illumination at night. Presumably that could be arranged to shine into the bedroom of the nationalist neighbour!
Flying the flag upside down is a distress signal. Perhaps that could be arranged by those who are distressed.
International usage forbids the display of the flag of one nation above that of another in time of peace. Perhaps your building could call a general meeting to declare war on someone!
Have a flag design competition so you can fly the flag of your owners corporation along side the Australian flag.
Those are my suggestions.
More seriously, I always suspect crass rightwingedness in flag wavers but that is my prejudice.
Ask Teys Lawyers for a complete back catalogue of their handy one pager briefing notes on diverse topics. That is a good way to get an idea of what issues come up and how to handle them.
Are the flags attached to common property? A non-serious suggestion would be to have everyone who objects fly some other, bigger flag, preferably one that would annoy the flag fliers, who presumably like to be seen to be more patriotic than thou. When it gets really silly pass a resolution banning the flying of flags from the building!
It sounds like there are two things: 1) a fence between your property and the common property. It might be reasonable for you and the OC as a whole to share the costs for that. 2) A separate issue seems to be a fence around the common property which would be a cost for the entire OC and consequently your contribution would be your fraction of the unit entitlements.
In our OC unit owners are permitted to have fences around their unit areas but it is not encouraged. In our case the unit owner pays for and maintains a fence on their unit boundary if they want to have one. We also have a fence along part of the overall property boundary. An allocation for occasional maintenance of that is included in our sinking fund plan.
Yes, phone a lawyer and say, “we are interested in engaging you for some advice but we first need to know if you are allowed to do so”. I'd be surprised if you did not get the answer to the question for free!
In the ACT the Act is very similar. The EC has a limit but latitude within that. Recently we have spent a very small amount to initiate an ACAT (CTTT equivalent) dispute because an owner has not complied with an 'Articles Infringement Notice' (they don't want to remove something they constructed on common property even after having it all explained nicely, then more formally).
We spent rather more (within the limit) on legal advice when it became clear that some owners were putting a motion to oppose the EC's decision to spend money on remedying a significant safety risk caused by a defect on the common property that had caused damage to private property. Having written answers from a lawyer to every question we could think one might ask about the matter made for a much more pleasant AGM than we might have had.
We also got legal advice when a different group of owners objected to an EC decision and took us to ACAT. We we genuinely unsure if certain parts of their argument were valid (some of it was, some was not). Again the legal advice was important and useful.
All this is rather new to us and we feel it is forced on us because we are trying to be competent and make a difference rather than muddling along and backing down at the first sign of resistance, the latter approach having caused many of the issues we are now dealing with.
We have just sent a letter to all owners. We have an important and difficult question about a use of the common property to resolve which will require working out just what motions to put to a general meeting. It is tricky because the best solution in one part of our property might not be the best solution somewhere else. People have different interests and we (the EC) want to be as equitable as possible in enabling unit owners to gain amenity from the common property but it will be unavoidably not equal. The matter is complicated by a messy history. The EC decided to form a 'working group' of EC members plus several others selected for have different interests from those EC members could be said to have. The EC will have the last word on what motion(s) to put to the general meeting but we genuinely want to try to build a consensus by including these others. On the other hand we didn't want discussion to degenerate into rabble by having a cast of thousands. The letter explains our approach and invites owners to feel ideas into the working group. I hope it works!
The other thing we do is have a subcommittee of one person who deals with the grounds maintenance contractor. We discourage owners from distracting the contractor with direct requests. That one person subcommittee does a great job but is not interested to be part of the EC for any other matters. The EC understands that it has the final responsibility but is happy to delegate this role. We get regular updates and sometimes step in when a particular task is required. It has been working well for quite a few years now.
I agree with Mr. Teys here. One of our owners would fit the description to some degree. She is not on the EC but send imperious edicts to the EC by email, CC’d to others who listen to her. Our chair has taken to dealing with this by picking just on thing in her emails that can be clearly demonstrated to be false, correcting her on that point, noting that there are many other inaccuracies and reminding her to be polite, all in a very brief email, CC’d to the same people she addressed. We tend hear much less from her since this approach was used. Previously we mistakenly gave her too much oxygen by engaging in debates with her or being outraged at ludicrous accusations. For some people, particularly the elderly, pointing out their bad manners is a far more effective censure than pointing out their errors of fact.
Does the budget have an allowance for general maintenance? Within reason the EC should be able to prioritise spending within that and go a bit over if something is clearly needed. If a special resolution to do something has been ignored by the EC you have to ask why!
Is this just one instance of one person using a power tool on one weekend evening? Perhaps not going to do it again for another few years?
Just by chance I have a neighbour doing a small project of limited scope and duration. I had a joke with her the other day asking with a straight face if she knew about our rules banning power tools after 6PM. She fell for it briefly before I said I was only joking.
Boronia said:
In past use of common laundries, I have found that each unit had its own power point (with a lockable cover) that is connected to that unit's meter. Thus the unit occupant pays for his/her own electricity, not the OC. Does this still happen??
Just as an aside, that makes a helpful precedent for the uptake of electric vehicles. I had wondered how buildings were going to cope with wiring back to each private meter from the parking area. In townhouses it is even harder if everything is more dispersed. I arranged to charge my electric car from a neighbour's unit because our shared parking area is next to his unit. I pay him for what I add to his bill (and purchase sufficient greenpower separately).