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Ideally, there would have been written agreement to a payment plan, which, if adhered to, would avoid any penalties aside from interest on the remaining debt at any particular time. Given the circumstances (knowledge of the owner’s disability and their regular payments), it seems unreasonable to have proceeded to debt collection rather than treating the owner like someone with an agreed payment plan.
I would try bypassing the strata manager and talk to the committee. I would also write to explain why the additional fees and debt collection costs should be waived.
“each carspace was granted for the sole exclusive use of the lot owner to whom it was granted.”
So, the manner in which the lot owner wishes to ‘use’ the space is letting it out to another resident.
Where I am, we have a similar arrangement. It is entirely up to the lot owner how they wish to exert their exclusive use. If two lot owners find it mutually convenient to use the other’s space, why should the owners corporation care. If a lot owner doesn’t need to house a vehicle and comes to an arrangement with another resident who does need to house a vehicle, who else should care?
Where I am, we put a piece of opaque card inside a light fitting on the side facing a unit that was bothered by the light. Simple and cost nothing.
This seems like over-reach on a trivial issue. So what if some shoes are left for a few minutes at the door of a flat, especially by someone carrying a child.
I reckon you could argue it either way.
On one hand, you could cite legislation on boundaries to say it is 50:50.
On the other hand, you could argue that it is part of the structures of the unit that just happens to be at the edge of the unit area. The UTMA is clear that the owners of class B units are responsible to repair and maintain the structures of the unit.
Since the second provision from the UTMA is more specific than the more general legislation on boundaries, I’d think the second view trumps the first view.
I would be even further inclined to the second view if fences were optional and only put up by or at the request of the unit owner. Where I am, fences around unit areas are only present if the unit owner wanted it and paid for it and this being a unit owner responsibility to maintain has never been questioned.
It is possible for the owners corporation to take on what would otherwise be a class B unit owner’s responsibility (by special resolution, from possibly fallible memory). EG. the OC might resolve to take on responsible for all the fences or for painting the outsides of all the units.
When proxy limits were introduced in the ACT, it was quickly followed by an amendment that allowed excess proxies to be transferred to the chair in order to avoid disenfranchising owners who had appointed a proxy while possibly unaware that their intended proxy had too many.
In the ACT, the chair is exempt from the proxy limit. I don’t know about elsewhere.
If the proposal is to have a ‘paper meeting’, which I would only do for an uncontroversial matter, owners could do an absentee vote (at least in the ACT) rather than appoint a proxy to vote on their behalf. There is no limit on how many absentee votes there can be.
The only definitive answer about boundaries is what is shown on your strata plan.
Hmm. Are you hoping to do this because you think ten individual building insurances might be cheaper than one standard strata insurance policy? This seems unlikely to me, especially as you say, the OC still needs insurance for the common property, liability etc.
If some are thinking that they would just not insure their units to save some money, that strikes me as a risk to the others. What if, for example, a fire damages two adjacent units, one insured and one not and the owner of the uninsured unit can’t afford to repair that unit. Are the rest of you going to try to rely on trying to get a Tribunal order to make that owner fix their unit?
I know strata insurance has gone up a lot in the last few years but I suspect it is wishful thinking to expect individual insurance has not.
The sinking fund plan can be amended by ordinary resolution at any general meeting. If you have too much money in the sinking fund, you can’t transfer money out but you can stop contributing to it. You are required to review the sinking fund plan at least every 5 years but nothing prevents you from reviewing and amending it at a shorter interval.
As you are class B with little common property to maintain, it is probably not a difficult task to prepare and present an updated plan yourselves that moves some of the expenditure that was anticipated for the past several years out to future years and revises the schedule of anticipated contributions. Put a motion for an ordinary resolution to adopt the updated plan. Then, put a budget motion that has a sinking fund levy consistent with the updated plan.
The bottom line is that the sinking fund plan is a planning tool. It is not a set of annual budgets set in concrete and it can be revised and updated at any time by ordinary resolution.
It might be reasonable to sit on an explicit ‘contingency’ amount that you maintain as an underlaying balance for anything you have not anticipated or could happen but is unlikely. Eg. you probably won’t need to do anything for your drains but there is a possibility that they could collapse. Your two lights probably won’t need any work but you might need to dig up the cabling if some fault occurs.
Deflect blame to the developer who did what developers do when they sell units: They set the levies artificially low to attract sales and now the new executive committee has the unpleasant task of proposing a budget with them to more realistic levels. Also explain that some major OC costs are going up substantially every year such as insurance. Just explain the reasons clearly and you will probably bring people along. Emphasise that you are all in this together and you don’t like having to pay higher levies either. Strata is us together, not something external imposing on us.
If the three units in favour have >50% of the unit entitlements, you might be in luck by demanding a poll vote at a general meeting. Alternatively, if the work is clearly necessary, you could go to the tribunal seeking an order to give effect to the failed motion for the special levy on the grounds that it was unreasonable for the motion to have failed. I assume the NSW legislation has a similar provision to the ACT legislation I am more familiar with that allows the Tribunal to undertake a merits review and, if it thinks it was unreasonable for the motion to have failed, give an order to give effect to the failed motion as if it had passed.
I think most state and territories have a principle that ‘utility conduits’ that service a single unit are the responsibility of that unit, even where they traverse common property. So, I would be inclined to apply that principle to the air conditioners. You could probably make an argument that the pipes and system that circulates refrigerant fluid into each unit is providing a utility service (heating or cooling).
Where I am, we added a general rule (ACT-speak for bylaw) to make explicit and beyond doubt that anything that services an individual unit is that unit’s responsibility to repair and maintain, even if it is on common property, with or without permission to be there.
Giving notice of an intention to terminate the current agreement is probably not a problem if both parties are happy to make a new 3 year agreement. By, in effect, the committee and the managing agent jointly proposing to make a new 3 year agreement, it might be argued that each party has, by implication, given the other party notice of their intention to terminate the agreement.
It does seem a bit odd though. Why not have a motion every three years to enter a new contract, either with the current manager or a different manager if the committee recommends either staying or changing.
Is this really ‘Making a profit from common property’?
The collection bin is on the common property but what goes into it is the waste containers of individual residents, which is not common property. Someone living on site (who only coincidentally happens to be a committee member) takes those containers for recycling and makes a donation to a charity on behalf of the neighbours who placed containers in the bin.
I think that is just a group of neighbours engaging in a cooperative activity. It is not an Owners Corporation function so I don’t think the funds have to pass through the OC accounts.