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There can be unusual cases so check if there is anything peculiar to your owners corporation. For example, At the townhouses where I live, we have a development plan adopted by general meeting resolution which states that fences are discouraged (with an explanation about the reasons) but that fences may be erected with committee approval subject to certain style and neighbour consultation requirements; that repair and maintenance of the fence is the responsibility of the unit owner; that fences must not enclose any common property.
Although these fences may be on a boundary of the unit and common property or with a neighbour, they were not part of the original construction but reluctant permission can be given as a structure erected on the unit subject to accepting repair and maintenance responsibility and other conditions.
In our case, we have a clearly written, explicit policy. Elsewhere, without any such policy adopted by the owners corporation, you revert to the general legal principles that JT has linked to.
I agree with JT that the rules are whatever your owners corporation decides them to be. Where I live, a clause of the conditions attached to the allocation of parking spaces states:
The Member shall not use the area over which a special privilege has been granted or the carport or any other improvement erected on it for any purpose other than the parking and garaging of vehicles, the storage of his, her or their personal effects, and any other purposes from time to time approved in writing by the Owners Corporation. When storing any items other than motor vehicles in the special privilege parking areas Members must:
- ensure that any items which are flammable are stored in a fireproof container;
- ensure that no items are stored in such a way that they may spill or fall over;
- ensure that no items stored pose a trip or fall hazard;
- ensure that no sharp edges are left uncovered; and
- comply with local government requirements for the storage, handling and collecting of stored items.
Storage of larger quantities of personal effects for extended periods can become an eyesore and the Owners Corporation may require the removal of items deemed excessive by notice given in writing to the Member concerned. Where the Member does not remove the item within 7 days of receiving the written notice, the Owners Corporation may remove and dispose of the item. The Owners Corporation without providing any notice may remove or make safe items which are deemed to be a hazard to owners, visitors or contractors.
I agree that SX has drawn the correct distinction.
I am not in Victoria but is the chair also resigning from the committee? I would expect that if the chair resigns, then the committee would elect a new chair from among its (remaining) members.
There might also be a casual vacancy on the committee. In the ACT, perhaps similar in Victoria, the committee can appoint someone it chooses to fill the casual vacancy. If the chair resigned from the committee as well, not just from the role of chair, then the committee could fill the vacancy first and then elect a chair, who could be the new committee member. That chair would be in the role until a new committee is elected at the next AGM.
If the chair resigns by putting it in writing, then that is correspondence that you might send to the managing agent for the OC records. Otherwise, I don’t see that the manager has anything to do with it other than being a hopefully well-informed source of advice about relevant processes in Victoria.
If the chair has just spat the dummy and wants nothing further to do with the committee, then the remaining committee would have to record something polite to that effect in its minutes and then get on with electing a new chair.
But it might be different in Victoria.
Acquiring exclusive use of an area of common property requires a general meeting resolution and the bar is generally high. It varies between states and according to other criteria but it could require an unopposed resolution of a general meeting. I suggest that any resolution should detail what you are permitted to do on that area and responsibility for maintenance.
Having the strata plan redrawn so as to include this area within your lot is a different approach with a similarly high bar.
The construction you propose would require both approval from the owners corporation and the local council.
I suggest you will need to do quite a bit of research and possibly seek professional legal advice before proceeding with a proposal.
The laundry room is common property. All residents should have access to the common property. The committee is responsible to maintain the common property on behalf of the owners. I would take it up with the committee that the room cannot be accessed. Are you sure the committee didn’t just change or fix the locks and your mother missed the announcement that anyone wanting to use the room should collect a replacement key?
If that is not it, then suggest to the committee that they should get the room opened and they should pay attention to the electricity outlets in the room. Is anything connected that shouldn’t be? If someone has done something dodgy with the wiring, then the committee should get it checked by an electrician if for no other reason than safety but also get it traced. If no-one is legitimately using the electricity for its intended purpose, ask the electrician to pull out the fuse or otherwise disconnect it in a way that can be easily reversed if someone does want to use the laundry room for laundry. Has the OC had unusually high bills lately?
Storing items in common property means that they have been dumped and can be removed…
It is not quite that simple. States generally have an ‘Uncollected Goods Act’ or similar. Depending on the value and nature of the items there are different procedures for legally disposing of unwanted goods left on one’s property. You can’t just chuck out or sell or dispose of however you like anything left on your common property.
Or you could alsways start Fair Trading proceedings…
If it is unequivocally a failure to maintain the common property, then yes. Branches contacting the building would be but the other aspects of the complaint perhaps not.
Some owners might prefer to let the trees grow to provide more shade or privacy or whatever, while others might prefer form pruning to let in more light and retain a view. If it is a difference of preference about how to maintain, then a general meeting vote might be more appropriate to make that decision.
Pressure could be applied by petitioning the committee. If a substantial fraction of the residents request it, it would be hard to ignore.
Alternatively, you could put a motion to a general meeting by which the OC would resolve to maintain its common property trees by annual pruning. Make sure you give notice to get it on the agenda well before your next general meeting and have someone to second the motion. Provide a supporting statement to accompany the motion explaining that it used to be done annually and why that is necessary. Resist the temptation to include blatant criticisms of the current SC. It will be obvious enough that you are implying that they have been slack. If the OC resolves to do something, then the SC is compelled to act on that.
You might want to include funding in your motion. Eg. Motion: That the owners corporation resolves to engage an arborist to undertake form pruning of the trees adjacent to the building on an annual basis to prevent them from contacting the building and to maintain views from and ventilation and light into the units, and that the proposed budget and levies for 2020-21 be increased by $X to fund this work.
I agree that residents should not, in general, store personal property on the common property. Able-bodied people can easily move their bicycles or prams and should not leave these in the foyer. On the other hand, there are times when it is appropriate to not apply such rules pedantically.
An elderly person’s life might be made much easier if a blind eye is turned to leaving their walking frame in the foyer. I would reject ‘thin edge of the wedge’ arguments. If the elderly person is made to try to get in and out of their front door while also bringing in the walking frame, it could make a big difference to their health and general well-being. It could make the difference between whether they get up and move about outside or stay indoors all day.
If it is a trip hazard in one particular spot, have a quiet word about putting it somewhere slightly different.
As for “there is a history of this particular owner complaining to and about other residents over various perceived issues”, this is irrelevant. The resident might be thoroughly unpleasant in other, unrelated respects but that should not matter. Treat each issue separately.
Here’s an idea:
When our OC passes a resolution at its AGM to approve a budget and levies, it specifies the amount of the annual levy and what fractions of that levy will be due on what dates. An option might be to keep the levy at the level it would need to be to cover the budget but resolve that the due dates shall be much later than they would usually be.
Explain to owners that this is to allow lee-way for a subset of owners facing financial hardship. Explain that the hope is that everyone who can pay would continue to pay by the usual due dates to help with the OC’s liquidity. When issuing the levy notices on the usual dates, make it clear that most owners should not take advantage of the later-than-usual due dates unless they really need it. Make it clear that once the later-than-usual due date has passed, the OC could then proceed with normal debt recovery action.
This would be manageable for the OC if it has sufficient cash in the bank to cover expenses early in its financial year with less income.
I am in townhouse so we don’t have this sort of arrangement but I understand from friends in apartments that it is usual for hot waters to be record each unit’s consumption. Then the total energy consumption (usually gas) is measured and a conversion factor is calculated to convert litres of water into MJ of gas. The conversion factor varies a bit for various reasons including that it takes more gas to heat the water when it is colder in winter.
If the retailer is not reading the meters, then the OC could. If the OC did this, then I would have thought that the gas or electricity used in each unit behind the single meter of the OC would be regarded as an embedded network. The Australian Energy Regulator has strict rules about energy supply to ‘premises’. The OC might be able to take over the meters, even if it is required to install smart meters that enable peak demand or time of use tariffs. Then the OC might negotiate a cheaper deal with the retail who only has to read one meter. The OC could read the individual meters and charge people according to their usage including their varying peak and off peak consumptions. That would enable some to respond to the price signal and avoid peak demand while others who can’t be bothered to run the dishwasher a bit later can wear the cost personally without imposing it on everyone else.
BTW. Electric vehicles are not regarded as premises so the rules are not as strict.
If it’s just a straw poll to reduce the options to a binary choice, to be decided in a formal setting, then they should have spelled that out.
When I was on an executive committee with over 100 units and we wanted to canvas opinion on a range of options we asked people to indicate on a form 1) their most preferred option, 2) acceptable options, and 3) options they would not support. Then we added a space for comments.
In the case of the original post, with only 8 units, could they not just call everyone together to talk about it, perhaps over a morning tea or evening drinks?
Above advice is good but I suggest you do some door knocking too. Often owners are unaware of brewing issues and you could bring it to their attention. Talk about it in a moderate reasonable manner and canvas opinion. You might quickly find that there is either very little mood for change or there is a groundswell of anti-pet opinion. Try to avoid personal comment no matter how much you feel it is one person having a go at you. You might find others volunteer that your downstairs neighbour has had a go at them too and then you are starting to build a group of allies.
If you find that many people would be happy with status quo. If so, you could go to the committee and tell them the results of your straw poll. It might be enough to make them back off. If you have numbers at your finger tips and people now know you, you already have some power.
With so few units, it seem likely to me that you could bypass the committee. If you have enough other owners who are annoyed by the parking matter, you could between you require the committee to call a general meeting in order to put a motion directing the committee to issue a notice to comply.
Since it would be clear that such a resolution would pass since you have the numbers and the resolution would compel the committee to act, it should be easy to make it clear to the wavering members that it would be easier to just support a resolution by the committee to issue a notice to comply without all the rest of the bother.
On the other hand, if it become clear that few if any of the other owners are actually all that bothered, perhaps it is not worth a fight.