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If things are proving too hard in Qld or anywhere else, I suggest looking at and lobbying for what the ACT has done in this area to streamline sustainability infrastructure on common property. In particular our Act now deals with things like approving conduits traversing common property as part of a sustainability proposal.
See https://www.justice.act.gov.au/review/view/17 and pick the factsheet on sustainability etc.
Cheers,
Peter from Canberra.
That seems pretty reasonable. If it is urgent-someone could be seriously hurt and the OC liable-the EC can and should spend the money to fix the problem immediately. Even if someone won’t get hurt but the OC is likely to be exposed to some other serious liability the EC should get on with fixing the problem and sort out who should have paid later. If it is not urgent, non-trivial amounts of unbudgeted spending should wait to go on an agenda for approval from a general meeting.
While talking with the abusive tenants might not be an option, talking to the few resident owners could be worthwhile. Perhaps the approach is to come right out and say you have heard that there are rumours and you wish to deal openly and frankly about them, that you invite owners to talk to you and others on the EC etc. People who might pass on gossip might be a lot more careful if you show you treat suggestions of impropriety very seriously.
We have exactly this situation. Two elderly ladies were separately given approval to install a simple rail beside short, sloping lengths of path that traversed common property from their units to the main, flatter path. In the ACT, the EC can approve ‘minor’ incursions on common property where they are ‘unlikely to unreasonably interfere with the use and enjoyment’ of the common property by other residents. The rails belong to those ladies and were their expense.
However, I think this highlights a need for a new Rule (by-law). I intend to propose something along the lines of: “Unit owners are required to repair, maintain and keep safe utility connections, paths, driveways and any other infrastructure or equipment that traverses or is placed on common property but only serves or connects to that owner’s unit.”
I am hoping something along these lines would cover not only paths but sewer lines and airconditioners and such like.
This sounds oddly familiar. In the last few weeks I have been having trouble with our manager just trying to get a meeting notice out on time. We had nothing out of the ordinary to put on the agenda and it should have been easy. There were various typos to fix and some changes to wording. I would email a list of what I thought were uncontroversial edits and she would only do some of them. On being questioned she told me certain things had to be where or how they were on the notice because it was required by the UTMA (ACT Unit Titles Act). I knew the Act did not specify such detail in its requirements for a meeting notice and when this was combined with some other matters it got me rather riled. Finally, I was told that the strata manager had adopted a policy of using some ISO standard for its meeting notices and certain fields were locked down. I don’t know why she didn’t tell me that in the first place instead of unnecessary nonsense about requirements of the UTMA. It’s made all the more confusing because we had generally had favourable impressions of this manager. Our EC is just hoping she was having a bad week.
My understanding is that if you can’t form an EC (say nobody accepts nomination) the entire OC becomes the EC and a general meeting is required to make any decision. I imagine that might not be completely ridiculous in a sufficiently small OC.
I understand that this topic does arouse passions! I think the trend is to tolerance and even encouragement of open air drying on environmental grounds. Reducing the use of electric clothes dryers is very low hanging fruit among the range of measures one can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or reduce your electricity bill. In the ACT a Rule (Bylaw) is now invalid if it prevents a sustainability measure. I think balcony drying could only be banned by an ACT OC’s Rules if the OC provided a good alternative such as roof-top drying or some other location that was sufficiently practical for residents, at least that is my interpretation. I think QLD has something similar.
I just don’t get the objection to laundry drying on a balcony. The cheapest and best value for money solar equipment is a clothesline. I am far more offended by one of my neighbours who never puts her washing on a line, on the balcony or anywhere else. She thinks we should all be using electric dryers!
If you are a clear majority and you are a small enough group to be able to readily communicate with each other I think you could issue a notice of a general meeting yourselves. You would need to have contact details for all owners to issue the notice. If you make sure that you do everything by the book I can’t see who could restrain an owners corporation from meeting.
We (our EC) recently called a meeting in the more usual manner to put a series of motions on an urgent and necessary matter and one extra matter that was not strictly necessary but a majority wanted to do it and it had to be done now if we were going to. An owners who has long campaigned against the second of those and refused to accept our legal advice on the first of those went to ACAT (the ACT Tribunal) seeking orders to declare each of the motions invalid and for orders to cancel the meeting.
The ACAT called an urgent hearing two days before our scheduled meeting date. This sort of behaviour has gone beyond a joke. We did not want to put up with this sort of sabotage and we engaged a lawyer to represent the owners corporation, the same lawyer who had assisted us in drawing up the necessary motions for the meeting. The meeting proceeded and the lawyer tweeted afterwards: “Just won a tribunal hearing in ACT so a meeting an (sic) proceed this week – courts don’t like restraining meetings – it’s jumping the gun”
So, if you tried before the conventional route to call a meeting and now a majority of owners put their names to a meeting notice, I doubt you could be be in trouble and I expect the decisions of the meeting would be valid if proper notice was given to all owners and proper minutes taken and distributed in the correct time frame and so on.
If you can afford proper legal advice though it would be worth it.
I doubt the previous office bearers are current but I am in the ACT so not so familiar with the details in NSW. I think in the absence of an AGM to appoint the entire OC becomes the committee. IE every decision requires a general meeting now that you are past the due time for another AGM to appoint another EC. I think the terms of the previous EC would have expired once the latest date for an AGM had passed. Since you had a poor experience with the conduct of your previous AGM and since you are only 4 units, I would suggest you see if you can get 3 or preferably all 4 units to agree to call an AGM which would then be conducted with a mediator present. I think you should be able to find a free or cheap mediation service – local governments often put some money into such things. It could be part of the call for the meeting that the chair (presumably has to be one of your owners. Can a non-owner chair in NSW?) would generally defer to the mediator in the conduct of the meeting. I would be presenting this as a way for everyone to have their say while making sure you get everything back on track to be run on a sound legal footing, which is surely in everybody’s interests.
In what respect will the tree ‘soon become an issue’?
Depending on the nature of the problem the local council might be able to assist or at least advise.
Might it cause structural damage to the footings of your property or is an inappropriate species within a certain distance of your utility connections (for which there are guidelines). If it would block solar access if it grows further you might be able to do something about having it pruned.
These seem to me the sort of things that might interest the council.
What to do would seem to me to depend a lot on what concerns you about the tree.
If I were in your block I would be one of those who would not be interested to have Foxtel but I would probably not object to the installation making it possible for owners to connect to it. If a special resolution is passed to install the necessary equipment on common property then it will be a cost to all. I would see this as similar to the situation we have where I live. I do not often use the BBQ equipment and my kids have got to big for the playground and I don’t use the tennis court but these features add to the value of everyone’s units so I have nothing to complain about when money is spent on such community facilities. If, a substantial majority in your block decide they want to have Foxtel equipment on common property either so that they can subscribe or just to know their unit value is increased by the possibility or they don’t want to deny this amenity to their neighbours, then the minority will just have to go along with that.
If you have 3 of 8 who would vote no on Foxtel, then you don’t have the necessary special resolution. Perhaps you can do some horse trading to everyone’s benefit. Are there some other shared facilities you could have that might appeal to different groupings? Perhaps you can bundle these together as a proposal to upgrade shared facilities generally with nearly everyone getting something that would appeal directly and all getting increased unit values.
When I asked this question hypothetically (our EC were feeling sufficiently fed up etc), our managing agent said she would have to call a general meeting every time she needed a decision on anything from the OC and that would eventually annoy enough people that they would form an EC.
I would have thought the interest would be charged from the due date unless payment is received before the end of the grace period. Nonetheless, since there is uncertainty I would suggest the EC should start charging interest from the later date. That way an incentive for payment still exists but you won’t get tied up in arguments about which date to start from; the late payer is unequivocally in the wrong and the OC clearly right and possibly even generous. One month either way is not much difference when the real problem for some OCs are the people who don’t pay for many months.
@struggler said:
I know that in our townhouse complex … the OC is responsible for the airspace above the courtyards therefore is responsible for the part of any tree in the airspace (I think about 3 metres above the ground).Ah yes, I think that is an ACT/NSW difference. In the ACT I own and am responsible for everything above my unit, possibly a wedge extending out beyond the solar system. Elsewhere on the forum I think I saw a mention that only some meters above a townhouse in NSW belong to you/is your responsibility.