[pipo]

This is what my research says:

“In New South Wales, a strata owners corporation generally does not need approval from a general meeting for non-urgent legal fees under $3,000. This exception also applies to legal services for recovering unpaid contributions, obtaining advice before legal action, or urgent matters costing under $15,000.” 

Given the $3k the OC seeking legal advice is non urgent, our SM and committee believe they don’t need to seek  OC approval as long as each lawyer’s bill is below $3k.

The legal fees now total $5k, is it reasonable that the EC does not seek OC approval even though the lawyer is dealing with the same matter and the total cost is now $5k +.

Also, the legal advice the OC has sought is against us even though we don’t need to comply as our balustrade is less than 1m from the ground (yes we had our own own engineer confirm this).

Do we have a legitimate argument to ask that we shouldn’t need to pay towards the legal fees that the OC has spent against us.

We have agreed to the reinforcement of our balcony even though we don’t need to comply under the building code.  We will lose 2sqm of our balcony which will mean our aircon compressor will pour out heat where we sit on our balcony.  Our balconies are not that big.

Any thoughts you have would be very much appreciated.

Thank you

 

 

 

[pipo]

I think something was lost in translation.  We have no problem in contributing to the cost of repairing our balcony and others (even though as I said we are less than 1m off the ground and therefore do not need to reinforce our balustrade).  We have owned in strata for over 40 years and understand and accept that whatever works need to be done on common property that ALL owners need to contribute.  This is not our first round of concrete cancer.

I do not believe in strata finance as my career has been spent in finance so I’d prefer that the onus is on each owner even if they have to mortgage their own unit.  Strata finance means that all owners are joint and severally liable for all owners ie if one owner can’t pay then all owners are on the hook.  I also feel that anyone thinking of buying in will be turned off by any debt.

The question I was seeking to answer was my understanding is if the owners corporation/executive committee feel the need to seek legal advice that if that advice is over $3k then it needs to be referred to all owners via a meeting.  Our executive committee have now spent over $5k without referring to the owners corporation.  The strata manager which is not Net Strata says because each invoice is below $3k they don’t need to convene a meeting of all owners.  My belief is that is a bit cute given we have to contribute to the legal advice against us.

We have a strata lawyer (one of the best known) and they have told us to send letters from us and not from the lawyer to avoid inflaming the situation which we have done.  I thought I’d ask the forum about legal costs to avoid paying $650 per hour.

My father who is terminally ill is why the works the OC are suggesting eventhough not necessary will be difficult for us.

 

 

[pipo]

May I suggest you, your committee and your strata manager tread very carefully.  I would make sure I had spoken to a strata lawyer about privacy and discrimination laws.  Also speak to the folks at Sane Australia.  My mental illness was placed on the strata record and I took legal action and won.  I still have to live with anyone looking at the records knowing about my illness.

[Author]

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