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The committee has been told that an owner would have to submit a renovation application to do this.
By whom?
This was the advice from the strata manager.
Are we talking about using an existing power point within a garage or carport that is attached to the unit and part of the unit area, not common property, with the electricity supplied from the meter of the unit? If so, the resident can plug in anything they like to that power point as long as it was sold with a fitted 10A three pin plug and has Australian certification, which it certainly would have if it is the portable charge cord supplied with an electric car sold in Australia.
If this is the situation, I recommend that the strata manager be either ignored or challenged to point to legislation that supports their claim.
…The only EV car fire I am aware of was caused when someone disconnected the battery in an airport car yard…That one was an example of stupidity. The battery was damaged by a high speed collision with road debris. It was removed from the car with a damaged case but then left to sit out in bad weather for a week during which time other cars were parked around it in a car holding yard at the airport. Eventually it caught fire and took out several of the cars around it.A November 2024 report from EV FireSafe classified the eight electric vehicle fires that had occurred in Australia up to that date: one case of arson, three cases of fire spreading to the EV from a building fire, three caused by high speed collisions (including the one JT recalls), and one of unknown cause. The last of those occurred in a vehicle connected to a charging station but the fire was not caused by charging and it was not charging at the time.… We also passed a resolution at this year’s AGM to ban charging of “(a) electric bicycles, electric scooters, electric skateboards and the like, and
(b) children’s electric ride-on cars, trucks, motorbikes and similar devices,
but does not include road-registrable vehicles such as electric cars, motorcycles, trucks and the like”.
anywhere in the complex…
I applaud recognising the distinction between very low risk road-registered EVs and higher risk e-bikes and the like. However, e-bike and scooters can be very useful low-cost transport. Instead of an out-right ban, I would have recommended that a low risk location be set aside for their charging or that rules be put in place about only using the supplied charging equipment and other risk-reducing measures.
Even if unmetered common property power was used for charging, the cost of electricity for such vehicles is so tiny that it would not matter. All owners would benefit if a low risk location were set aside for such charging from a couple of common property power points.
Discussion here might be getting ahead of the actual situation. We don’t know what the parking arrangements are. Perhaps each unit has its own garage/carport and can have an ordinary 10A power point for charging behind its own meter in its own garage. This is unlikely to cause any problem.
Unit owners might be encouraged to use their own solar if they have it. They might sign up for a time of use tariff or other EV-specific tariff that give cheaper charging in off-peak times.
We don’t know the situation.
There’s also the question of money. Installing a EVSE device to ensure no-one overloads the power supply will cost money.
Not necessarily. They may not need anything nearly as complex as a centralised load management system. It might be enough to install a cheap timer and relay. That is what our OC has. The power to the parking area is simply off during four hours of the evening peak demand period. Power is available for charging for 20 of 24 hours. The power supply to a site is generally sized to slightly exceed the peak demand. Outside a few hours of peak demand, there is plenty of headroom for additional loads such as EV charging.
And there’ll probably be a periodic licence fee for the software in it and perhaps for occasional updates.
With the system we have (relay and timer), there is no subscription or software required.
Lastly, are you sure the other 8 units will be happy to pay for your electricity while continuing to buy their own petrol? If they aren’t perhaps you’ll also need an EFTPOS device wired in.
With only 9 units, you don’t need a fancy solution. Where I am, we have a simple kWh counter in line with each power outlet in allocated parking spaces. As treasurer, I periodically read the meters and fill in a simple spreadsheet that subtracts the previous reading, multiplies by the c/kWh rate and spits out the amount to bill each EV driver.
This is a small strata schemes of 9 units; a mix of detached villas and townhouses.
Is the vehicle accommodation individual parking space/garages attached to the individual units?
Two residents are keen to purchase EVs. Advice given to the Owners Committee indicates the power supply is insufficient to support owners installing 15 amp EV chargers.
We need to know more. Is this supposedly the power supply to the whole site or the power available for a circuit in a block of share parking garages? Is it common property power or the supply to individual units we are talking about?
It appears some EVs can be plugged into an existing 3 pin electrical socket. This is called a Level 1 AC Trickle Charge. The committee has been told that an owner would have to submit a renovation application to do this. Why would this be needed when no physical change is required?
All road-registrable EVs can charge with a 10 amp ‘portable EVSE charge cord’, which is usually supplied with the vehicle. This can plug into an ordinary three pin wall socket. The cord has a box of electronics that communicates with the car and tells the car’s on-board charger to take no more than 10A, since that is the rated limit of the power socket that the plug fits. Many people find that a 10A socket is all they need. I use a 32A socket for 3x faster charging but it is certainly not necessary. A 10A socket can add over 100km of range overnight, which is more than enough most of the time.
The charge cord is a standards-compliant device that can be safely plugged into an ordinary power point. It is no different from plugging in 2kW room heater, a toaster or a kettle. The only difference is that 10A is drawn for hours at a time. It would be reasonable for a committee or unit owner to want to get an electrician to check that the wiring and socket are in good condition if they are decades old.
Aside from possibly wanting the wiring checked, I can see no reason not to allow a unit owner to use their own power point with any device that comes supplied with a standard 10A 3 pin plug.
If the parking is in a shared block with power points on a common property circuit, then it is possible that you could have an outlet in every parking space but you could not have an EV charging on every one of them at once. This is because you could have (say) 9 outlets on a circuit that is rated for (say) 32A total. The expectation is that you would not have all nine 10A sockets being used at 10A all at once. An electrician might tell you that you could have 3 cars at 10A but no more. You might decide that you could have 2 cars charging on such a circuit leaving 12A of capacity for minor loads on the other power points. Your OC could agree that 2 cars could charge but when there are 3 or 4 cars, you could still use the circuit but you could have a roster of alternating days so that only 2 are charging at any time. Once you get to half of the owners having EVs, you will then have the numbers to support a better solution.
The better long-term solution could be to have a set of 9 wall-mounted EVSEs that communicate with each other to automatically load manage splitting the available supply between whichever cars are plugged in and charging.
Is permission needed for an owner to garage their EV that is only ever charged at work?
Absolutely not. It is a road-registered vehicle – completely legal. If the concern is about fire risk, that is a complete furphy. The Insurance Council of Australia published a briefing note on EVs in residential buildings. They rated road-registered EVs as “very low risk” in contrast to small personal mobility devices such as scooters and e-bikes that were rated high risk. https://insurancecouncil.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/ICA_Briefing_Managing-fire-risk-EVs_Nov-2023.pdf
Are there any small strata schemes that have encountered this issue?
Yes.
It doesn’t matter what the EC thinks should be covered. The panels are a fixture and must therefore be covered by the strata insurance, whether they like it or not. The same goes for another lot owner’s gold-plated bath tub or fancier-than-usual installed wall oven.
Most strata insurance policies include a substantial amount for ‘lot owner improvements’. Ours covers $250,000 worth. This will cover units that have added a bigger or better air conditioner or fancy kitchen fittings etc. The solar panels are not making any difference to the cost of the insurance policy. They are just noted because they are an alteration that has been notified.
Even when our OC spent $40K on a large communal solar system over a decade ago (they were more expensive then), we notified the insurer and they did not require any change to the premium.
Are the current owners of the two lots likely to stay there for the long term? If so, why not simply mutually agree to let the other lot use your parking space without anything formalised? If one owner were to sell, the remaining owner could then negotiate with the new owner of the other lot to see whether they would be happy to continue the mutually convenient arrangement? That would cost nothing.
If the parking spaces are common property but allocated to particular lots, then a general meeting resolution could swap the allocation. Since it would not affect anyone else, there should be no objections.
If the parking spaces are included in the title of the units, then a formalised swap should be possible via some bureaucracy, but is it worth the cost and bother when you could do the first option above?
I think the first edition was quite good and useful although it had a minor error in the way a tribunal matter was described that was a bit annoying to me having been involved in that matter. I wrote to the author, who acknowledged the error and said he would fix it if ever there was a second edition.
On one hand, the unit roll or register is part of the Owners Corporation records, so any owner should be allowed to inspect it.
On the other hand, strata managers know that even some committee members could abuse access to the roll and that many owners would be offended that their personal details had been handed out and if things got messy, the strata manager would cop the criticism. So, it is easier for them to say they can’t give it out and claim that this has some basis in privacy legislation. The grain of truth in that is that the managing agent is more likely to store such records securely in line with privacy requirements whereas random owners, even if currently committee members, can’t always be relied upon (from their point of view).
As a committee member, I have generally avoided having an unproductive argument about it with our strata managers. Instead, it is rare that we really need to see the roll. If we want to distribute some document or make some announcement, we don’t need the roll – we can just ask the managing agent to distribute whatever we have to all owners or just the relevant owners.
Often we can ask the managing agent to send a message asking a unit owner to contact the committee about some matter. Once the owner replies, we have their email address or phone number or whatever independently of the managing agent and can continue the communication.
In short, it is rarely an argument you need to have.
…Do you have a reference for “the valuation could not be more that some number of months old and still be used for the reallocation”? Haven’t seen that in the Act? What I have seen is that the special resolution must be not more than three months before the application.
From hazy memory (there was a lot of back and forth), I might be remembering the special resolution time frame. We came to the conclusion that we would need people to agree in principle with really knowing the effect because we would need agreement and cooperation to do the valuation, which would include a budget allocation for the valuation.
Only when we had the valuation, could we have put a motion at a second meeting to reallocate unit entitlements according to a new schedule based on that valuation. Otherwise, how could we expect to get a special resolution passed for a change of unknown effect?
Also, how much of this could the Executive (Strata) Committee do on their own? Could the EC commission the comprehensive valuation without reference to the full OC?
Not much, I think. The valuation would be a non-trivial expense so it would need to have been included in an OC-approved budget. Also, you would probably need the cooperation of all members to have access to all units, or at least more of them than you would need for an insurance valuation.
p.s. In relation to “Note that the valuation for this purpose is not the same as the usual valuation for insurance purposes”, what sort of valuation are we talking about? The Act refers to “the improved value of each unit relative to each other unit”.
A valuation for insurance purposes is simpler and cheaper. It is really about just the cost to rebuild, which is a completely different question from the relative sale values of the units. Eg. Two identical units might cost exactly the same to rebuild if they burned down but one might be worth more than the other due to a more desirable location eg. on elevated ground away from the street next to a park vs on a noisy street corner.
In researching this, I found one strata managing company’s website with the following statement: “The allocation is typically based on various factors such as the size, location, and features of each lot. Larger or more strategically positioned lots may have a higher Unit Entitlement.” Does this sound right to you? It doesn’t sound formulaic to me, and is more in keeping with my interpretation of “improved value”.
That sounds right. Where I am, we have units with the same floor plan but different UEs due to location and we have units in similar location and with same floor area but different plans, and the plans of one style were valued more highly than the other style.
I have seen an example where a few owners in a class B ACT development were pushing for a reallocation of unit entitlements due the inequity they perceived as resulting from some unit having been extended (within their unit area) while others had not been extended. Several ECs looked into it diligently at various times and always concluded that even a very substantial alteration was unlikely to make such a difference to the allocation of unit entitlements as to make it worth the expense and bother.
The bother involved was substantial. Not only did it require a special resolution, but also various steps had to be performed within tight time frames. Eg. One would have to have the OC agree to pay for a comprehensive valuation, which would be needed before the special resolution to reallocate in line with that valuation, without any guarantee of benefit or success, and then the valuation could not be more that some number of months old and still be used for the reallocation. If it took longer, the multi-step process would have to start again.
Note that the valuation for this purpose is not the same as the usual valuation for insurance purposes.
There was more to it, but that is the gist – very complicated, multi-step, expensive and potentially divisive without a guarantee of success for an only marginal potential improvement in fairness and equity.
If the owners corporation had a landscape plan adopted as policy by a general meeting resolution that designated this area for growing weeds and if the committee changed its purpose to growing veggies without similar authority, then that might have been acting beyond its powers. If it spend a substantial amount on the establishment of the garden without a budget allowance, that also might have been beyond its powers.
However, now, 3 years on, the area IS growing veggies and I suggest the onus is on anyone objecting to put a motion to a general meeting to change the purpose of this area of common property to something else. Such a GM resolution would then trump the committee’s decision. The committee could put a counter-motion to establish a set of guidelines for the management of the area as a community garden.
Ultimately, the owners corporation as a whole can decide how it wants to use its common property.
BTW. When the place where I live set up a substantial community garden it involved non-trivial money and a change of purpose to an area of common property so we did put an authorising motion to a general meeting after considerable consultation with owners.
I’m not certain but this is how I think it could work:
The special levy presumably has a due date, interest is payable on any amount that has not been paid by a lot owner after that date. This is the same for any amount of arrears such as being late with the ordinary levy.
If the Owners Corporation (OC) has taken out a loan, then the OC as a whole is liable to pay the interest on that loan.
I assume that when everyone pays the special levy, it will be enough to discharge the loan.
If the loan interest is less than or equal to the interest payable on arrears, then, in effect, the lot owners who have not yet paid the special levy will be covering the OC’s interest cost.
In the ACT legislation and probably elsewhere, there is also a provision to bill lot owners specifically for costs that are incurred by the OC due to some failure or negligence on the part of a lot owner. It might also be possible to use that sort of provision to cover any short-fall in the recovery of interest costs.