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I don’t think there is anything I would cut but then I would say that as the treasurer who drew up our budget. I think it is just right. We already have quite a few things that are handled by volunteers. The services we pay for are tasks that really do need a professional.
…and a reasonable amount of incidental storage of car-related materials should generally be tolerated…
Yes. We have an explicit parking rule that includes: “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.”
IE. Yes, you can store some stuff there so long as you don’t go overboard.
When you have two car spaces is it OK to park a small caravan or trailer in one of them?
Can’t see why not. I have two allocated parking spaces. I have our car in one of them and our wind-up camper trailer in the other. No-one has ever objected. Our rules say that the spaces are for housing ‘vehicles’. A trailer is a vehicle (as is a bicycle, a motorbike etc).
If this were where I am (ACT), it sounds very likely to be the unit owners responsibility to fix.
The Owners Corporation is responsible to repair and maintain plumbing that services multiple lots. The unit owner is responsible for lines that only service that one unit. So, somewhere, there will be a ‘tie point’ where the sewer line from the unit join the main line that takes input from multiple units. That is the point at which responsibility transfers (at least in the ACT). I always had the impression that a similar principle generally applied elsewhere. Even if the tie point is somewhere under common property and the individual tributary passes under both unit area and common property on its way to the tie point, the entire tributary is the unit owner’s responsibility.
Hmmm. Speedbump or by-law? Wonder which one most owners would go for…
Depends whether they want a by-law that they can ignore or a speed hump that others can’t ignore.
What if … the zone becomes a pedestrian zone. So children will be able to play safely and cars will drive slower…
Yep and add a speed hump or chicane or whatever to slow cars to walking pace. That’s what I meant by an engineered solution, rather than a regulatory one.
The by-law is about “playing”, which is different from someone walking to/from their residence.
Says ‘playing’ in the title but the text of the by-law says “…must not permit any child … to be or remain on common property…”
This is yet another respect in which the by-law looks weak to me. Can you prove the child was ‘playing’? Well no, but the by-law say ‘to be’ and the child certainly ‘was being’ on the driveway as they walked home from school. I vaguely recall somebody telling me the text of a clause in the law carries more weight than any heading. But I am not a lawyer. If it were really strictly limited to being about ‘playing’ children, I would expect the text of the by-law to refer to a child ‘playing’, not a child ‘being’. ‘Being’ seems as broad as you could get.
This by-law strikes me as a bit too vague. A driveway in one strata site could absolutely be somewhere you would not want children to play, supervised or not. A different driveway somewhere else could be an ideal shared common property space that presents very little danger (though anywhere shared with vehicles would have some). It could be the best place for kids to ride scooters or play a ball game. Why not install some traffic calming measures if needed at the site? An engineered safety solution is always better than a regulatory one.
The by-law is also vague with potential over-reach. Is a 12 year old walking home from school and up the driveway going to need to arrange supervision for the last bit of their journey lest they be in breach of the by-law?
It seems to me that each OC should work out whether they need such a rule for specific areas presenting real risk and if there is a risk, whether that risk could be minimised some other way than through a by-law.
An OC’s insurance would typically include $20 million for 3rd party liability. Obviously, you don’t want to rely on that and would prefer to have the property as safe as is practical and reasonable. Where I am, we are unconcerned that some kids ride bikes and scooters and kick balls and so on in quiet parking areas and driveways. I’d suggest the solution, if one is needed, is to implement some traffic calming measures so kids can learn to ride a bike or scooter on a quiet paved area at home.
The question is, would you as an owner be prepared to carry a share of the debt of another owner until they sorted themselves out, or would you send in the bailiffs (figuratively speaking) at the first signs of long-term financial distress?
I have been on both ends of this. When we bought our unit, we thought all the conveyancing had gone through but one step didn’t happen. The solicitor did everything correctly and there were two cheques (it was the olden days) from his trust account to pay off the considerable unpaid rates and owners corporation levies that had been subtracted from the sale price. The former owner had their money but the two cheques were still attached to the file by paper clips when the ACT Law Society decided to freeze the trust account and those two cheques could not be paid until the the trust account was unfrozen. I have no idea what the solicitor had done to cause the ACT Law Society to freeze his trust account on the day of settlement of our unit purchase.
We were young and had scraped together every penny for a very small deposit and had no way to find any more for these debts. We had to implore the Executive Committee to accept our assurance that we had been assured by the Law Society that those cheques would be able to be cashed eventually. Some months later, we were informed that the payments had been made and we were off the hook.
More recently, as treasurer, I have chased up several of our residents when they have fallen behind by 6 months to a year to discretely ask them to sort out a payment plan with our managing agent and to talk to me if they can’t work out anything. Some unit owners have fallen behind more than once but all have always caught up before the arrears got to be more than one year’s worth.
We have generally have only one or several units with arrears out of about a 100 units at any particular time. The ACT requires a general meeting resolution to do anything other than charging 10% simple interest and we have not ever done that but we have sometimes asked the managing agent to waive other fees such as for 2nd and later reminder notices. Sometimes there is a good reason such as a unit owner has died and the executor is still sorting out probate and will not have the cash until they are able to sell the unit.
We don’t have cash flow problems because 98% of units are typically paid up so we can afford to be a bit tolerant and the OC ultimately doesn’t lose due to the compulsory 10% interest.
…My philosophical issue is that if we sell our rarely used sporty little Audi S1 and buy a new electric car … the net effect on the environment will be negative.
Perhaps, since your Audi is rarely used. However, your comment is similar to others I often see. People often make the mistake of thinking only of the swap of an EV for their particular current ICE vehicle.
Usually, when someone buys a new EV, their probably still good, probably quite recent model ICE vehicle is bought by someone who might have bought a new ICE vehicle. This is good – both parties not adding another new ICE vehicle to the fleet. That person sells their older but still quite efficient and inexpensive car. It will be good value for someone who sells their yet older car to someone who keeps it running for a few more years. That person’s old car is badly polluting, running poorly, needs expensive repairs and gets scrapped and its materials largely recycled.
The car that gets displaced out of the fleet when someone buys a new EV is generally the least good, most polluting vehicle. All along the chain outlined above, each person generally gets a newer, better, more efficient vehicle than their previous one.
JT, your Audi, even if driven every day by a boy racer, would probably be replacing some other car that had been driven every day by that boy racer. The car that your EV ultimately displaces would be something completely clapped out. Your purchase of an EV would give everyone in the chain of used car purchases a better used car than they had previously and probably a net reduction in emissions from the vehicles in that chain.
Most people, most of the time buy used cars. However, we need the people who do buy new cars to get vehicles with the lowest emissions possible because they will be the used cars being bought 3, 5, 10 and 20 years from now by everyone else as they work their way through a chain of owners.
We can’t afford to have new ICE vehicles continuing to enter the fleet. If someone needs a new car and they can’t yet find an EV that suits them (for whatever reason), I recommend that they instead purchase a newer/better/more suitable used vehicle rather than adding another ICE vehicle to the overall fleet.
…strata committees need to start planning for full electrification of their buildings. This issue is not going to go away…The committee has recently produced a case study on how it went about this project and what the financial outcomes have been…
Excellent. Well done.
In short, the power bills for common services have been cut by over 60% …
I always recommend that Owners Corporations (OCs) look to see first how solar, energy efficiency, gas replacement etc could create savings on common property expenses. An advantage of that is the costs are shared equitably in proportion to unit entitlements and the benefits resulting from lower on-going costs to the OC are automatically shared in proportion to unit entitlements. Consequently, there can be no complaint that the arrangements are not utterly equitable.
… the gradual introduction of electric vehicle charging…
Good. It’s not all or nothing. Every building is different but a key point with EV charging is that it can be incremental with sensible planning. Just don’t assume linear uptake; it’s exponential.
…We are quietly confident that over time, these changes will be reflected in higher market valuations of properties in the scheme as well as generating ongoing savings for owners and occupants.
Yep. I reckon people will be surprised how quickly all this is seen as crucial. We are in the exponential uptake phase.
…Once the powers that be have conned everyone into switching, then up will go the rates the Lecky people charge…
It’s not a matter of anyone conning anyone. Getting off gas and going all electric while ramping up renewable electricity generation is the only practical way we can decarbonise our energy supplies. Gas will face a death spiral as ever more people get off gas and those who remain connected have to be billed more to maintain the network for a dwindling customer base.
Where I am (ACT), electricity prices are low and stable for two reasons: 1) The ACT govt. entered into long-term, fixed price power purchase agreements with renewable generators, and 2) electricity pricing is regulated. Retailers can offer pricing plans below the regulated ceiling but not above. If other states’ prices get too high, their governments could introduce similar policies.
… had the vision to set up our building for sustainable transport. A fast AC charger was installed (7/22kW) and a number of 15A power outlets are available for e-bikes and e-scooters…
How many units do you have? 6 floors suggests quite a lot, which means that one shared AC charger might not be enough once most cars are electric. While a minority of the building’s cars are electric, you might be fine with a shared charger as an interim arrangement and people might be good at negotiating sharing.
Later you might need more charging outlets. On the other hand, they don’t necessarily need to be all that fast. They could be 7kW max. and networked to load share. When many are plugged in and/or other building demand is high, charging could be paused or limited to just 1.5kW. As some cars cease charging and/or building demand falls, remaining cars can steadily increase their charge rates. Eventually, the last few cars can charge the full 7kW when building demand is low. The control of charge rates can be done automatically by a central control box that communicates to each charger, which in turn tells each car what current they can draw.
This sort of load management avoids the need for expensive upgrades to the buildings supply.
That seems broadly sensible and workable. Questions that occur to me are:
Not being familiar with your layout, can a person easily comply while having their expensive e-bike or scooter or its detached battery secured against theft or interference?
Are there power points in parking spaces allocated to individual units so that one can plug in when it is convenient without needing to wait for someone else to get off a shared facility?
Have you checked the capacity of the relevant circuits to handle multiple instances of charging? Multiple e-bikes and scooters that might each only pull 1-2 Amps are probably not an issue but you couldn’t have multiple electric cars each pulling 10A on a circuit with multiple 10A power points behind perhaps one 16A breaker.