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I agree that a good capital works (aka sinking fund) plan has a schedule of anticipated annual levies for the duration of the plan. The levy in any given year is decided by that year’s AGM’s budget resolutions.
The point of the plan is to meet infrequent, lumpy expenses more equitably among owners who come and go by contributing to the fund about the same each year.
So, a variation on what I suggested would be that the plan could include several variations on the schedule of levies to accumulate sufficient reserves of cash for expenses anticipated at various times into the future and the owners could vote on which to use. One might start lower but consequently rises higher later in the plan period. Another might start a bit higher and rise more gradually and yet another might start higher still and stay the same for every year of the plan. If you give people three options, they then tend to go for the middle one.
There are options between no change and doubling. Perhaps you could have a series of motions: One to increase by 25%, another by 50% another by 75% and another by 100%. If the first motion passes but is immediately superseded by the second but the third fails and the last lapses, then you will have found that a majority support going to a 50% increase, which is better than no funding.
Needing a fingerprint to exit sounds dangerous. You should be able to exit quickly and easily in case of fire or similar emergency.
It sounds to me like the committee just got spooked by someone putting the fear of god into them that the gym area presented all sorts of immediately catastrophic liability risks.
So, they issued some rules that they thought would get them out of this situation but they didn’t put them to a meeting for the entire owners corporation to decide. Probably correctly, they thought this would be too hard because only 25% opposing would vote it down and oppositions are always more motivated and organised. Also, their imagined huge liability risks (there are some and there would be reasonable ways the deal with them, but they are probably catastrophising) would remain until they had managed to organised a general meeting and explained their case, and their case probably did not amount to more than anxiety rather than a reasonable assessment of the risks.
So, since they made up these rules, and since they are getting some pushback from you, they have decided they can soften a little in the hope that you will go away. They probably have good intentions but not the energy to do it all properly.
Well, there you go. Examples of children using the pool for highly virtuous purposes. I can imagine rhetorical flourishes in mediation about the risk of unwittingly thwarting a child who could one day have become our next Great Aussie Sporting Legend Olympian Swimming Champion. Clearly banning kids from the pool is ‘unAustralian’! [To be delivered in one’s best Roy and HG voice!]
Once somebody is in (say a parent without a child) can they open the door from the inside to let others through (say another parent with several children in tow)?
As this is a lap-pool associated with a gym, I can see how an argument might be made that this is a pool for serious training and not a recreational pool or designed for children. However, I would counter that with 1) Some children could be training seriously, eg. for school or other competitions, 2) Children’s water play is important for learning water safety and could lead to a sporting and general fitness interest in swimming, 3) Children are residents too, with a right to use and enjoyment of the common property.
A fear from serious users of a training pool might be that they won’t be able to use it because it is full of kids. A reasonable solution would be to have designated, child-friendly times for recreational use and other times designated for training, perhaps with a booking system.
What are they storing in there? The crown jewels?
Perhaps you could get around it if one of a coalition of parents and carers did register their fingerprint and that person lets the rest of you through before the door closes. If you end up at the Tribunal, you can add in unreasonable restriction of access to the common property – requiring biometric data for access without evidence of adequate data security.
Here is an idea:
1) Make sure you have your request for evidence of a registered by-law, minutes of a meeting and a proper notice of that meeting in writing.
2) Get together with the parents or carers of other children and organise to supervise your children using the pool responsibly on a regular schedule. Make sure you are compliant with the model by-law quoted by JT, even if it does not apply to your site. It shows what the legislators regarded as reasonable.
3) See what happens. Perhaps nothing.
4) If you are issued with a notice to comply with the by-law, reiterate your request, in writing, for evidence that the by-law exists and is valid.
5) If no evidence is forthcoming, continue the above cycle.
6) If it turns out the by-law was adopted by a properly constituted meeting and registered, investigate further whether it can be thrown out by the Tribunal as harsh and unreasonable and substituted with the model by-law, which the Tribunal should accept as reasonable, or attempt to get the same outcome by putting a motion to a general meeting.
What do we need to do to have the cars removed, given that it is unlikely for the owner to ever do anything?
If you have a managing agent, they should be across this. There is a process for legally disposing of ‘uncollected goods’ left on one’s premises.
My father was a minister and uni lecturer in philosophy, especially religion. He would sound slightly interested but appear to vaguely recall some apparently contradictory passage from the bible. The proselytisers would counter with some other quote but he would match that with some other inconsistency and so it would go with the debate escalating until eventually they would be backing away up the path commenting that my father appeared to actually be quite familiar with the bible and they rarely returned.
How is electronic voting any different from absentee voting with a form or directing a proxy to vote a particular way, also with a form?
On the matter of electing a committee, an absentee member could write on the form that they wish to vote for or against particular candidate, should they stand, if nominations are not already known. They could nominate someone and indicate their intention to vote for them if that nomination were seconded by anyone at the meeting. They might alternatively line someone up to do that.
I once had an absentee owner use our form to specifically vote against me and another committee member if we were renominated. This did not present a technical problem and the votes for and against us both were noted in the minutes.
Go over their heads in either of two ways.
1) Find out who is their local minister/priest/guru/whatever and explain that you do not want to be disturbed. Persistent visits after being told about the shift workers amounts to harassment and nuisance, which are actionable under the law. Say that if this nuisance continues, the OC intends to take advice on legal action. Put it in writing from the chair of the Owners Corporation.
2) A sign that says:
“Dear Religious Evangelists,
Many of our residents are shift workers who need to sleep during the day. Your persistent knocking after being asked to desist is inconsiderate. We have gone over your heads and it has been revealed to us that God does not want you to disturb us either.
Regards,
The Residents of ….”
I agree with JT. Bad idea and would require council approval. If you did go ahead, it would be the Owners Corporation that did the renting out and received the income. With additional income, the OC would not need to levy owners as much to cover its various expenses. Consequently, the owners would all benefit financially through lower levies in proportion to their unit entitlements without any personal tax implication.
If the OC is large enough to be registered for GST, then it would have to add GST to the space rental and include that in its tax statements.
Just keep it simple. I would send it to the secretary but copied to the treasurer and strata manager, addressing it to the committee as a whole asking for an explanation from the committee. The committee could instruct the manager to respond. Alternatively, a role of the committee is to supervise the treasurer. The buck stops with the committee and you will have ensured they get it addressed to them.
I would also give the committee more than 5 days so that you give the committee sufficient time to arrange among themselves to meet to discuss and decide their response. Ultimately, you want to be able to demonstrate at the Tribunal, should it come to that, that you were utterly reasonable at every step and gave them ample time to investigate and respond.
As JT suggests, keep it simple. You just want to know what those particular transactions (state the amounts and dates) were about: from whom, to whom, for what purpose. Don’t go into any theories of your own or airing of other grievances. Keep it simple. At most you might note that you had made previous enquiries on particular dates.
You could conclude by stating: ‘I intend to take the matter further with appropriate authorities if I do not receive a sufficient explanation by (some date, say 3 weeks later).’
You could go to the Tribunal seeking an order that the owner desist from modifying the common property without authority from the committee. Failing to comply with a Tribunal order would then be a serious offence, which might be made clear by the Tribunal member, especially if you ask the question “What if the owner does not comply with the order?”.