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Are the three carports shown as parts of three of the lots? Is the fourth lot shown as having a parking space on the driveway, but not a carport?
I suggest that a general meeting could resolve that unit owners may install garage doors within their lots at their own expense subject to (some sensible conditions such as their style or colour or whatever matters in the context) and subject to agreeing to be responsible for their repair and maintenance.
If the fourth lot could have a carport constructed over its space, perhaps the resolution could also grant permission for that unit to construct a carport (at its own expense, responsible for repair and maintenance etc).
If each unit owner would be just doing something at their own expense, within their unit, with permission, then the money need not go via the OC accounts.
However, if the 4 parking spaces are not parts the unit/lot areas and instead are common property, then perhaps nobody has a valid claim over the covered spaces. If that is the case, perhaps the OC should look into validly creating and allocating covered parking for all units?
I think a more serious talk to the strata manager might be the next step. If you have only so far asked whether it has been previously reported, then there are some other questions to ask:
Does the OC have an unequivocal statutory obligation to maintain the common property which includes the roof? (answer is yes).
Who would be liable if the noises were symptoms of a serious structural defect and the roof were to collapse? (Answer should be that the OC (IE all owners) would be liable, and perhaps the managing agent as well if it was brought to their attention but they did not advise the EC appropriately)
What if the noises were a consequence of something that could be easily fixed with some minor maintenance? (Answer: the EC could just get on with fixing it out of this year’s maintenance budget)
How can the OC know if the cause is minor and easily fixed or serious and dangerous without an engineer’s report? (Answer: It can’t know for sure unless there is something really, really obvious, but even then you almost certainly want the OC to spend a few hundred dollars to get the advice on what the problem is and how to rectify it.)
Do you (managing agent) recommend that the OC engage an engineer to advise, and can you arrange that? (The answer should be yes to both of those!)
Have a whip-around to get the one unfinancial member’s levies paid!
Jimmy’s advice reminds me of a unit owner who in our set of townhouses always put her bins where she could not see them on the outside of a courtyard wall which happened to be next to a well used footpath on common property rather than inside the wall which was her property and not in everyone else’s face.
The EC wrote a general newsletter item asking people to please store their bins within their unit area. Then the EC wrote to the unit owner and asked her directly. Then the EC asked the managing agent to write. All this was ignored. An irritated neighbour took to occasionally putting her bins back in her unit area but they were returned to outside the wall.
A few years elapsed. It was occasionally convenient to have a bin on common property to dump stuff in!
Then the OC was reviewing its rules (bylaws/articles, depends where you live). The EC proposed a rule about personal items, bins, rubbish, etc left on common property. In extensive consultation with owners we explained that this proposed rule would apply, for example, to a person who left their bins where they did not have to look at them but everyone else did. We didn’t hear a peep. The bins remained on common property. Our explanation included saying how it would give the EC the necessary teeth to insist.
Then, just after the AGM at which the new rule was passed, the bins disappeared and have not been seen again, presumably now stored within the unit area.
Sometimes the rules work!
I’d be inclined to just get on with it while keeping all correspondence and all documentation of compliance with building codes and whatever. Photograph everything lest you be asked to remedy common property that was already damaged. Do what you reasonably can to be accommodating but don’t put up with a non-flushing toilet for any longer than you have to.
@JimmyT said:
@PeterC said:
Does it take 75% for owners generally to force a general meeting in NSW? In the ACT, a petition from 25% of owners stating the matter to be decided can be presented to the EC …Same applies in NSW but you can only sack an EC member from the committee (or have a mid-term election of a new committee) with a special resolution at the general meeting and that requires the approval of 75 percent of those voting. Hence my reference to 75 percent.
Thanks. In that case, I agree with ‘keep your powder dry’ till you can vote a different EC by 50% vote. However, at the same time, if you have not got your remote entry yet, put a motion on the AGM agenda to have the non-functioning remote entry system repaired. If that passes but the guy gets back on the EC, you have extra authority to insist that it be done. The EC has to act on a directive from the OC at a GM (so long as it would be legal to do so).
Frustrating and annoying as it is, you could have bigger problems. I suggest the best thing is to not show that it bothers you. Just take in your mail and put the junk mail into the recycling.
Or, do something that does not look targeted such as providing a recycling bin next to the letter boxes as a convenient service to all residents. Anyone seeing your pair post the junk mail in your box will know they are doing the wrong thing, even if the background is not known.
Whatever you do, make sure it would be seen by other residents as dignified and not stooping to the childish levels of these irritants.
Sure, try a letter or petition or talking first.
Does it take 75% for owners generally to force a general meeting in NSW? In the ACT, a petition from 25% of owners stating the matter to be decided can be presented to the EC and that requires the EC to call a general meeting within 28 days.
Agreed with DaveB.
Not sure which state. However, where I am (ACT), it takes a special resolution for an OC to decide to not maintain some aspect of the common property and there are further criteria that must be satisfied. So, you might not need to round up much support to be able to say with confidence that any motion to not maintain the remote system would fail, and the EC (not chair), should reinstate the remote system forthwith.
How many others have made the same change? The ideal solution, if it can be arranged, would be for all to be covered by the same approval, including future door-installers. Unless there is something unique about your door, the EC should either try to have all doors removed at the same time without discrimination or support a motion to have them all approved at the same time.
I think you might need to enlist the other door-owners at first and then as many other owners as you can find to support a generic approval. The other door owners might help you by enlisting the owners they know and get on with. It can be presented as an attempt to retrospectively do the right thing for all doors. If you get a very healthy majority in favour but the motion fails (say you get 70% but not 75%) you might then apply to the tribunal for orders to give effect to the failed motion. IE They can declare the motion passed if it would have been reasonable for it to have passed.
On that last point I am assuming the tribunal in NSW, or whichever state you are in, can do what the ACT tribunal can do. That is, it can give orders to give effect to a failed motion, if opposition to the motion was unreasonable. Note, that has been interpreted at the ACT tribunal to be a test of the merits of the motion – what would the reasonable outcome have been? – not an attempt to see inside the heads of the people who voted ‘no’ to see if they were personally being reasonable or not.
Yes, well done for taking it on, particularly without a hand-over from the previous EC. Much is communicated verbally as new people join the EC and old people leave and ideally some stay on through the transitions.
GST can be confusing. Our budget is all set out on the basis of the costs anticipated without GST, and the same for our levies. Then GST is added to our levies when individual owners are billed. Similarly, there is GST to be paid on most OC costs. The GST collected on levies has to be passed on to the ATO but the GST we have paid on our costs can be deducted from that. The consequence is effectively that the GST that is passed on to the ATO is approximately zero.
Your strata manager should be able to explain that to you. The EC is relying on the strata manager to get the accounting right. If you can’t satisfy yourself that it looks to be correct and reasonable then keep asking questions. Remember their job is to satisfy you that the place is being managed properly.
In the specific instance, the strata manager should be able to provide a copy of the invoices from the building manager and it they don’t show whether there is GST included or not, then you have to ask how the SM is doing the accounting correctly.
@Whale said:
If you’re in NSW, the Strata Schemes Management Act (SSMA) prescribes that Annual General Meetings (AGM) must be held each year (obviously) on a date that’s no more than one (1) month either side of the Scheme’s original / first such meeting; so there’s no “15 month mark” – it must be between 11 and 13 months relative to the original such Meeting.The amount of Owners’ contributions (levies) must be set in accordance with the terms of a compulsory Motion placed on the AGM Agenda, and under the SSMA be invoiced as “regular periodic installments” in accordance with those Owners’ vote on the Motion; so whilst it’s possible for Owners to vote for five (5) periodic installments per year (i.e. one regularly each 73 days) that’s atypical, but in any case the invoice should state the period for which the payment applies…
Similar but not quite the same for the ACT: In the ACT there must be an AGM for each financial year and the AGM must be held within 15 months of the previous AGM.
Many years ago my immediate neighbour, with whom I share a party wall (sorry about the pun), liked to have a serious party. He would have a lot of guests and very loud music.
He was considerate and a generally nice guy. He talked to his neighbours well in advance. He invited his neighbours. I’m sure he would have been accommodating if anyone close by had some reasonable concern arising from, say, shift work or a medical problem. He only did it infrequently. There was never a problem.
It would have been different if my neighbour had not been so generally neighbourly and had such parties much more frequently. I think most people liked to have him around to liven things up.
Some motions are required by the various states’ strata acts. Eg. a budget motion is required at an AGM. If it is not sufficiently clearly worded it might not fulfil the requirements of the Act, then what might be ‘illegal’ was the failure of the OC to produce an adequate budget resolution.
Other motions might not be exactly illegal but simply ‘of no effect’ since they attempt to do things that can’t be done. For example, if the Act says a certain class of decision must be decided by (say) an unopposed resolution of a general meeting and a general meeting passes a resolution to delegate that such decisions to the executive committee, then the resolution would simply have ‘no effect’ because the Act takes precedence. If the Act says something has to be done one way, the OC can’t resolve to do it a different way.
I could imagine successfully arguing that a GM resolution is ‘of no effect’ because it was not sufficiently clearly worded to determine what was actually resolved. In a borderline case of a poorly worded resolution it might be obvious that some things were clearly intended to be in scope for the resolution and it might be reasonable for an EC to act on the resolution to that extent. However, it might not be clear whether some other things were authorised (maybe in scope, maybe not), in which case it would be wise for the EC to act conservatively in those areas and propose a more carefully worded resolution to clarify the situation.
Our AGM always has a budget motion which sets the budget for the year and also states what the levy will be and when it will be due to be paid. I assume that something as basic as this is the same in every state or territory. In our case we have two half-levies due on specified dates usually 6 months apart.
If your last AGM resolved to have a quarter of the agreed levy due on each of four particular dates then that should be all the OC can levy on owners until it has had its 2015 AGM and resolved to levy some new amount (or the same amount) and specified the dates when specified portions of the 2015/16 levy would fall due.
This year our OC’s AGM was a bit later than usual for various reasons so the due date proposed by our EC for first levy payment was a bit later than usual also so that it would fall after the meeting. It would not have been possible to have that levy due before the 2015 AGM had given authority for that levy.
Where is your executive committee is all this? Having a strata manager is all very well and generally useful but the buck stops with the EC. If they are too timid they need to be told that they instruct the manager, not the other way around.