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If at all possible, I suggest trying to find a sympathetic ear on the committee. If one person will listen, then that person as a committee member has a responsibility to supervise the treasurer and other office holders and see that money is spent with proper authority in accordance with the budget approved by the AGM and so on. They should have access to the accounts, most likely through the manager’s web site with a committee log on.
Another option is to do that yourself having been elected at the next AGM.
Another option is to visit the managing agent’s office having arranged to inspect the OC records. Any owner is entitled to do that. Take notes and then ask specific questions of the treasurer about what particular payments were for if they are not annotated sufficiently to work out.
The strata manager might be slack but they might also be in a difficult position. They act for the OC as instructed by the committee and have to do as they are told, unless it would be clearly illegal.
If you do some poking about, that might be enough to have the committee and manager being a little more careful to have things tightened up and more clearly kosher.
@JimmyT said:
Sadly we don’t have that here in NSW. There is no code of conduct per se…I wonder whether an OC in NSW could pass a resolution adopting the wording of the ACT code of conduct (or similar) as a direction to its own committee members. Then, if an EC member were behaving badly, it could be pointed out that they are in breach of the NSW Act because they are not acting as directed by a resolution of a general meeting of the OC. More importantly, it could act as a statement of principles that the OC wishes to see upheld.
In the ACT, and I expect elsewhere, the lot owner and any tenant are held to be responsible for any breach of rules/bylaws jointly and separately. I think the OC should negotiate with the lot owner. If the lot owner agrees to make the repair then allow that, but make sure you have a time-frame in writing and specify what constitutes a proper repair. If the lot owner does not agree to make the repair, then the OC should make the necessary repairs the common property at a reasonable cost and then bill the lot owner for the cost. If the lot owner refuses to pay then the OC can get a Tribunal order that they must pay. The lot owner may or may not be able to recoup the cost from the tenant, but that is ultimately the lot owner’s problem.
To avoid the difficulty of getting a special resolution and since the committee has to act in accordance with directions of general meetings, perhaps the EC could just decide as Austman suggests but the committee could choose to also propose an ordinary resolution at a general meeting along the lines that JT suggests about who can view the footage. That way the committee would be seen to be acting openly by volunteering to be constrained by the OC’s guidance. Also, the current committee, who might be thoroughly decent and reasonable, could be seen to be wisely putting constraints on future committees who might not be so wise.
Individual committee members can’t make unilateral decisions. In practice, there might be some minor things for which it is reasonable to ignore formalities. Eg. one committee member, who knows about the common property lighting, might just go ahead and replace a bulb whenever a light is out and might just go ahead and call the OC’s usual electrician if replacing the bulb didn’t fix it.
Also, our ground contractor does routine pruning as they see fit to keep paths clear and for the general health and appearance of our plants. In addition, various unit owners and committee members might occasionally just snip off a bit that obviously needs doing without asking anyone. We might even remove a certain type of small tree that is not intentional and comes up as a weed around here.
If there was someone complaining that things were going beyond reasonable, trivial and flexible into unreasonable, substantial and unjustifiably unilateral, and that is what you are saying, then, as an EC member, I would want to cover our arses by being extra diligent about recording a resolution to do each thing or to formalise delegations to do things (eg. ‘Member X is delegated to fixing lights’). I would also say that we should be extra careful to make sure reasons for decisions were recorded. That way we could demonstrate our reasonable efforts to make the right decisions, openly, with transparency etc. Self-defence, even if we thought we were being entirely reasonable.
In practice members of committees I have been on would spend money on some routine stuff without asking each time and get reimbursed, but this was for things that were obvious and minor and the relevant people had done it before and always kept receipts and so on. Eg. buying some replacement light bulbs. We were always able to rely on committee members’ good sense to know when something was no longer minor and needed a committee decision. Eg. We have a budget for tree surgery and one person tends to handle tree matters (Handily, she has a forestry degree so knows about trees). She would get quotes for what she thought needed doing, but she would not go ahead until her recommendation had been approved by the committee. Also, we would not go ahead with any substantial work on a tree until she had talked to the unit owners that might be effected by it.
So, no, your chair should not unilaterally approve pruning of common property trees, at least not if it was obvious that it would have an effect on your unit.
As it happens, I was subject to just this sort of complaint not long ago. I helped a neighbour remove several leggy and overgrown large bushes/small trees from her unit boundary. One of her neighbours complained that we had also removed stuff from her garden (We didn’t.) and that we had effected the privacy and outlook from her unit (It could not have.). The accusation was quite bizarre because she would have to be able to see through a brick wall for the plants we removed to have had such an effect. We had talked to the people who could plausibly have been effected and they were all happy with the gardening we were doing.
I take it that NSW does not have a legislated Code of Conduct for Committees. One thing that might put committee members on notice and which they could hardly object to would be a motion for your Owners Corp. to adopt the following code of conduct (from the ACT legislation):
Executive committees—code of conduct
1 Understanding of Act and code
An executive member must have—
(a) a commitment to acquiring an understanding of the Act, as relevant to the member’s role on the executive committee; and
(b) a good understanding of this code.
2 Honesty and fairness
An executive member must act honestly and fairly in exercising the member’s functions as an executive member.
3 Care and diligence
An executive member must exercise reasonable care and diligence in exercising the member’s functions as an executive member.
4 Acting in owners corporation’s best interests
An executive member must act in the best interests of the owners corporation in exercising the member’s functions as an executive member, unless it is unlawful to do so.
5 Complying with Act and code
An executive member must take reasonable steps to ensure that the member complies with the Act, including this code, when exercising the member’s functions as an executive member.
6 Nuisance
An executive member must not—
(a) cause a nuisance on the land; and
(b) otherwise behave in a way that unreasonably affects a person’s lawful use or enjoyment of a unit or the common property.
7 Unconscionable conduct
An executive member must not engage in unconscionable conduct in exercising the member’s functions as an executive member.
Examples
1 improperly using the executive member’s position on the executive committee to gain, directly or indirectly, an advantage personally or for someone else
2 exerting undue influence on, or using unfair tactics against, the owner of a unit in the units plan
Note An example is part of the Act, is not exhaustive and may extend, but does not limit, the meaning of the provision in which it appears (see Legislation Act, s 126 and s 132).
8 Conflict of interest
An executive member must disclose to the executive committee any conflict of interest the member may have in a matter before the committee.
Presumably she is only one member of the EC. Can you appeal to the other members?
In the ACT the strata legislation has a code of conduct for EC members. Even if NSW does not have this, you could try referring to the ACT code since it articulates reasonable principles that one could reasonably expect anywhere. Item 6 Nuisance might apply here.
ACT UT(M)A 2011
Executive committees—code of conduct
1 Understanding of Act and code
An executive member must have—
(a)a commitment to acquiring an understanding of the Act, as relevant to the member’s role on the executive committee; and
(b)a good understanding of this code.
2 Honesty and fairness
An executive member must act honestly and fairly in exercising the member’s functions as an executive member.
3 Care and diligence
An executive member must exercise reasonable care and diligence in exercising the member’s functions as an executive member.
4 Acting in owners corporation’s best interests
An executive member must act in the best interests of the owners corporation in exercising the member’s functions as an executive member, unless it is unlawful to do so.
5 Complying with Act and code
An executive member must take reasonable steps to ensure that the member complies with the Act, including this code, when exercising the member’s functions as an executive member.
6 Nuisance
An executive member must not—
(a) cause a nuisance on the land; and
(b) otherwise behave in a way that unreasonably affects a person’s lawful use or enjoyment of a unit or the common property.
7 Unconscionable conduct
An executive member must not engage in unconscionable conduct in exercising the member’s functions as an executive member.
Examples
1 improperly using the executive member’s position on the executive committee to gain, directly or indirectly, an advantage personally or for someone else
2 exerting undue influence on, or using unfair tactics against, the owner of a unit in the units plan
Note An example is part of the Act, is not exhaustive and may extend, but does not limit, the meaning of the provision in which it appears (see Legislation Act, s 126 and s 132).
8 Conflict of interest
An executive member must disclose to the executive committee any conflict of interest the member may have in a matter before the committee.
Our OC had a professional one done in 2009, which, in retrospect, I don’t think added all that much over what we could have worked out for ourselves but it had the advantage of being accepted with more confidence by owners because we paid money for it. The next one in 2015 we did ourselves but couched very much in terms of doing reality checks of our actual costs against the professional estimates of 5 years previous and noting where the two were in good agreement or at variance.
I was treasurer for both of these. I am recently no longer treasurer. I had hoped that writing a lot of annotation on the 2015-25 plan to note the evidence for the estimates of costs and timing would help for succession and preservation of corporate memory. Our new treasurer has just produced a draft budget that suggests he didn’t read much of our sinking fund plan. This is consistent with the impression that he joined the EC to sort out our EC because it is self-evident that his predecessors, especially me, were incompetent. He seems determined to reinvent the wheel.
Am I just a bit irritated, having put in the work to produce a document that can be reviewed every 5 years, updated etc., only to find it ignored after only 3 years?
I think nothing is better than starting with pen and paper and writing down every bit of non-routine maintenance you can think of that you might need and how often and what it cost last time etc. It won’t take long before you are well on the way to answering the question.
I would also aim to have a fair bit of ‘contingency’ funding which you aim to have as a kind of basal residue in the fund that you could use if several of the expensive things ended up costing (say) 50% more than your reasonable estimates or there was something big you didn’t think of.
@Lady Penelope said:
It would be advisable from a hygiene perspective for pool cleaning and monitoring to be predicated on the maximum possible usage i.e. all occupants, whether they be owners or long term renters or short term renters using the pool on a daily basis, rather than on the minimum usage.Possible usage gives a worst case scenario but you could reasonably base it on actual observed usage. Perhaps in practice, even in the middle of summer, only some fraction of the occupants of units use the pool on any particular day.
Don’t know about elsewhere, but in the ACT one of the default OC rules permits the EC to enter a unit to investigate a suspected breach of the OC rules subject to giving reasonable notice. One of the other default rules requires compliance with any law in force in the ACT. So, if illegal activity is suspected, the EC could give reasonable notice and inspect. Of course that provides time for the drug lab to be disassembled and packed away. If nothing else it would put the drug maker on notice and create sufficient nuisance that they might decide to pack up for good.
This is not a strata question. Perhaps someone can suggest a suitable forum on rental matters?
I agree that the pool is private. It is situated at the private residential premises of the members of the Owners Corporation, that is, on your collectively-owned ‘backyard’, the common property. Nonetheless, it would be wise to look at the health and safety requirements for a public pool and apply those as far as possible.
@Lady Penelope said:
Jimmy T – I am a bit confused about the terms (1) ‘co-operative housing’ and (2) ‘co housing’ (communal housing). Both appear to be quite different. Are you able to provide a definition of both? Which type are you advocating for?Ditto. The Owners Corp, of which I am part, is a set of townhouses built by a housing co-operative in the mid 1970s. That is, the people who intended to live here commissioned an architect to come up with a plan to meet their requirements as well as complying with planning guidelines.
Very early on in planning, I understand, there was talk of building at least part of the site as co-housing, with shared kitchens or living areas but private bedrooms. This did not come to pass and the units were built conventionally with the usual complete set of kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, living areas.
Another housing co-operative, set up at the same time as ours and using the same architect, did build a few units joined to a shared living area but they were mostly separate. Most of the units were conventional.
Both developments were intended to have substantial shared facilities. Our co-op went bankrupt and did not get the community hall and swimming pool that our twin got. Only in recent years have we been slowly improving our shared facilities. Most recently we have added elegant but simple picnic shelter over a pizza oven and BBQ area next to a playground from the 1980s, recently brought to current standards, and a clay tennis court from the early 80s. We are talking about a community veggie garden in the same area.
Another option, if the wall is easily accessible, would be to see if enough owners would be prepared to do the rendering of the wall DIY. It might not be such a highly skilled job as the other tasks and a series of working bees might do it at much lower cost. Those who can’t or won’t do the work might provide the labourers with cool drinks periodically and a communal meal at the end. It might help build a sense of community.