[PJ]

Can a Lawyer legally demand Strata Committee Agendas and Minutes from meetings.

The Update from above is that the Owner’s Lawyer has demanded he be sent copies of the Agenda and Minutes from the last Strata Committee meeting. He states he needs to check that the strata committee has acted within its scope and with full support from the Body Corporate. He is claiming the committee has been vexatiously pursuing his clients to prevent them selling their unit. He has made 2 demands for this now and I have been of the opinion that our Strata Committee agendas and minutes are the private business of the Body Corporate and are not the business of anyone outside these owners and the Strata Manager. Heaven forbid sharing with a local lawyer with who knows what dubious dealings. There is a lot of information about our strata in the minutes which does not need to be shared. For the record I distributed the Minutes of the last Strata Committee meeting to all owners via the Strata Manager within 2 days of the meeting. In the minutes the first agenda item was dealing with this owner’s breach of By Laws and a Plan of Action. For the record I have  had no contact from any owners with concerns about this Plan, apart from the Owner’s who have made the unauthorised alterations to common property. Should this meeting have been a meeting with all owners and not just Strata Committee. By the way this whole nasty business has resulted in 2 members of the committee resigning within the last week.

[PJ]

The Plot Thickens

The owner of the Unit where unauthorised changes were made to common property has now “lawyered up” and letters have now been sent to the Strata Secretary. The lawyer is threatening legal action by the owner against the committee and any individual members whom they state are acting outside their role and their scope of power, and hindering the sale of the lot owners unit. They have made no attempt to make repairs requested by committee…or address the underling issue that the owner made unauthorised changes to common property. The lawyers letter has made the accusation that the nature of the committee requests are “trivial” and that the recent conduct of the committee has become a nuisance in reference to the SC secretary’s contact with the selling agent to inform them of the common property issues. The secretary is currently collecting the evidence to Submit a request for Mediation by Fair Trading as was advised on this forum. Should our Strata committee be seeking our own legal representation or is this likely just bluff.

[PJ]

Once an owner makes fairly un-rectifiable unauthorised changes to common property such at laying ceramic tiles over Common Property, who has ongoing responsibility for the maintenance of that altered space.

Our Strata Manager states that these changes are then recorded under the Lot and the owner of that lot is then responsible for all ongoing maintenance.  Is this correct?

Do the owners Corporation then have no monetary responsibility for ongoing maintenance only authority to approve/ not approve any future changes on behalf of all Body Corp. owners.

Is there any references to this in the Fair Trading/NCAT legislation?

[PJ]

I would like feedback about how our recent AGM by Zoom was conducted as it seems very odd and perhaps illegal.

We had 15 of 24 owners sign in and 3 owners held proxies…so 18 voting owners. The size of the committee was previously 9 but a vote by owners decided to reduce to 7 this year. There were initially 13 committee nominations ( 2 later withdrew) so total of 11 nominations for 7 positions. The Strata Manager then stated without any discussion with owners , that the election of committee would be conducted by voting papers to be submitted by owners to SM with a deadline of 6 days later.

Is it legal to not complete the election of a strata committee at an AGM?
The Strata Manager informed all owners they must vote for 7 committee members…is this right. Can owners vote for a lesser number of their choice and not have their voting paper declared invalid by the SM?
Is there a conflict of interest if a Strata Manager and Secretary are long term best friends? Should this be declared to owners as a possible conflict of interest?

I have on 3 occasions requested a copy of the Strata Roll from the secretary and SM and been denied x 3 / ignored x2 and told the secretary did not have access to same. Is this legal and accurate?

[PJ]

The cupboard fell off the wall apparently due to failure of the screws that were put into the wall to hold up the cupboard when the unit was built. By the way the unit was built 32 years ago and this is the original cabinetry. When I say no event caused the fall….I mean no storm, earthquake, explosion etc….which is some of the events that the insurance company said would be covered for contents insurance.

[PJ]

Thanks Jimmy…I asked the Secretary to request a Quote from the Strata Manager for services to arrange a contract with the builder. I think this may have short circuited the potential for the Strata Manager to generate charges for services stated as over and above the strata managers role, which has occurred previously. The Strata Manager stated there would be no extra charges “ unless forced to by unusual and unnecessary work”. I presume this means that if the strata manager has to take enquires from owners regarding aspects of the contract then there could be extra charges. I think this is fairly open ended and difficult to prove or refute. The build is a fairly significant one for which owners have had to pay hefty extra levies so the potential for owner enquires / input is high. Is it the norm for a Strata manager to be the one to negotiate with builders and prepare contracts? I was informed it was the Strata managers job but I would have thought that was an owners or OC responsibility.

[Author]

Replies