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Children make noise. As we age it appears that we become less tolerant to children’s noise.
If you are particularly concerned then check to see whether there is a By-law regarding the age of children that are allowed in the pool without supervision, or any rules that deal with the supervision of children on common property.
If the children are supposed to be supervised and they are still too noisy then perhaps you need to talk to the person supervising the children. They may not be aware that the noise level is disturbing to others. They may have their headphones on listening to music etc. Sometimes (but not always) better supervision = better noise control.
Below are some suggestions from the Royal Life Saving Society of Australia regarding pools. It does not deal with noise – merely with supervision.
Perhaps your scheme can adopt them into your By-laws.
- Children (under 10 years) are not allowed entry unless under active supervision of a person 16 years or older.
- Parents and guardians should actively supervise their children at all times and be dressed ready to enter a pool. For 0–5 year olds and non-swimmers, a parent or guardian needs to be in the water at all times and within arms’ reach of the child. It is best if you are engaging with your child i.e. playing with them, talking to them.
Constant active supervision is required for children aged 6–10 years old. Parents and carers must be prepared to enter the water with this age group.- For 11–14 year olds it is recommended that parents regularly check on their child by physically going to where they are in or around the water.
Owners who are not on the Committee must definitely be notified of any Motions that are being voted on by the Committee. Your extract from Schedule 2 does not reflect all of the requirements.
Agendas of Committee meetings must be circulated to all owners prior to the Committee Meeting.
Even if no official meeting is called and the Committee decides to conduct all of its decision making outside of a Committee Meeting then the Owners still need to be notified by Notice at least 3 days in advance of an impending Committee vote. The Notice should include the proposed Motion(s).
Voting outside of a Committee Meeting must be in writing and not by phone.
Then, within 7 days after the passing of a resolution by the strata committee outside of the formal Committee Meeting, copies of the minutes must be given to each member of the committee and each of the Owners.
kezza111 – From the legal opinion below it appears that ‘majority rules’ when it comes to audio recording of Strata meetings. To prevent someone from ‘unknowingly’ being recorded then the ideal scenario appears to be the creation of a by-law.
https://www.lookupstrata.com.au/nsw-recording-strata-meetings/
This link below backs up JT’s AFR article about leases.
https://www.pageseager.com.au/airbnb-licences-may-actually-be-leases/
However, the link raises an interesting conundrum about whether the owner has provided a ‘lease’ or a ‘license to occupy’ the property in the situation where a short term tenant is not given exclusive possession of the whole of the property.
In situations where the owner locks off one of the bedrooms to store their personal possessions, or where the owner locks off the garage space and keeps their car in the garage for the duration of the short term stay, may both have an impact on the determination as to whether the ‘tenant’ has been given exclusive possession of the whole property.
The two scenarios above are more likely to occur when an owner retains a physical connection to the property, albeit intermittently.
This is clearly different from those owners who have no physical connection to the property apart from operating it as a business.
If exclusive use of the whole property is not provided then it could be argued that the owner has merely provided a “license to occupy” rather than a “lease”. A ‘license to occupy’ would probably not trigger a breach of Section 258.
Another hurdle to be resolved through the Courts, no doubt!
The first thing to do is check where the boundaries of the Lot are on the Strata Plan, and the year that your Plan was registered.
See the following document for the preferred interpretation that Fair Trading uses to deal with these issues:
The OC is responsible for doors, windows and walls on to the courtyard (unless the plan was registered before 1 July 1974 – refer to the registered strata plan).
From the Memorandum the door to the courtyard is referred to merely as a “door”. There is a separate classification for an “Entrance Door”. I may be wrong but it would appear that if Fair Trading wanted to classify the door to the courtyard as an “entrance door” then they would have used this wording in the information provided in the section explaining the responsibility for “Balcony and Courtyards”.
In addition, the term “Entrance Door” is described separately in the Memorandum. Note that this is singular and not plural. This suggests that a Lot only has one Entrance Door. In my opinion, if more than one Entrance Door was contemplated as being possible on a Lot then the plural of “door” (i.e. “doors”) would have been used. Based on this interpretation the door to the courtyard would not be an Entrance Door therefore any deadlock on it would be an Owner responsibility.
Security doors, other than those installed by an owner after
registration of the strata plan, are the OC’s responsibility to maintain.It is clear that the door that you have mentioned is not the original door. It is therefore the Lot owner’s responsibility to maintain and repair.
Sorry Puddn – I thought the washing machines that you were referring to were in a communal common property laundry. Inside and apartment is a different ‘kettle of fish’.
Puddn – Can you tighten your by-laws to include operating hours for the washing machines? This would need approval at a general meeting, and would also need to be registered, before it becomes enforceable.
I am not claiming that the following comment applies to your scheme but sometimes strata schemes erroneously believe that ‘house rules’ posted on the wall of a laundry are sufficient to impact on behaviour. However, by-laws are the only enforceable methods to do this, particularly for certain types of people e.g. those who like to ‘push the boundaries’.
A by-law should avoid the subjectivity surrounding “fair and reasonable”.
SH – There is no requirement for a seconder when submitting Motions to a General Meeting in NSW. This possibly explains why some of them are so poorly written etc.
The following extract is from the https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/biz_res/ftweb/pdfs/About_us/Publications/ft045.pdf
“Anyone who is entitled to vote at a general
meeting can ask for a motion to be put to a
general meeting. Written notice must be given
to the secretary who must put the motion on the
agenda for the next general meeting. The written
notice must:
• set out the motion
• name the owner who made it
• have an explanatory note of up to 300 words.”Without infringing on the owners right to submit a Motion, perhaps the committee could organise to have an informal chat to the submitter of the numerous Motions. The submitter obviously is unhappy and ‘fired up’ about certain things and many of these Motions may be able to be sorted out in another way.
In answer to your original question: Can a Motion to raise a Special Levy be placed on the Agenda of an EGM? The answer is YES. This is due to the fact that the Special Levy is designed to cover emergency maintenance and spending situations.
In my opinion the Levies that you have described as being ongoing over a 5 year period would not be classified as a Special Levy. Instead, they would be classified as Capital Works Fund Levies (formerly known as Sinking Fund Levies).
See this article for a better explanation of the 3 different types of Levies:
https://jamesons.com.au/blog/special-levy-explained/
SH is correct when he says that the formulation of the annual budget is paramount and if not approved at the AGM then it would not be unreasonable for it to be approved ASAP by the OC at another general meeting (i.e. at an EGM).
I would have thought that there should have been a separate Motion resolving the issue of whether the OC was agreeable to the obtaining of a Strata Loan before the budget was set.
This should have been at least a two step process:
Step (1): Obtain approval for the levy increase – possibly by way of a Motion with Alternatives which gave owners a choice between (a) a Special Levy, (b) a Strata Loan, or (c) ‘beefed up’ ordinary levies with monies to be accrued over time. NB: This all depends upon how urgent the need is for the work.
To keep things easy and simple this approval should have been sought at an EGM prior to the AGM. The Committee and the SM should then have relied upon the outcome of the Motion with Alternatives to craft the legislated annual Budget Motions to be submitted for the upcoming AGM.
Step (2): The OC approves the AGM Budget which includes the approval obtained in Step (1).
It seems very unusual to build the Strata Loan into the annual budget without first obtaining OC approval for this action.
David2708 – Perhaps the following article may help – especially (3) which explains that a generic or blanket by-law may be possible for bathroom renovations that include waterproofing:
https://www.lookupstrata.com.au/strata-renovations-nsw/
and see here a further explanation of the legal issues involved and the need for a certain specificity in the generic by-law:
https://muellers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Renovation-By-laws-17.04.15.pdf
david2708 – I am not sure what you mean by a “blanket special by-law”.
It is possible for the OC to purchase a “fill in the blanks” by-law template, or have a strata solicitor create a by-law template that can be used by any owners who wish to renovate and water proof their bathrooms.
I am not sure whether strata solicitors would recommend this approach, although I can see that it would save owners the expense of having separate by-laws drafted by a solicitor each time an application is made.
Each owner who undertakes a bathroom renovation involving water proofing would still have to submit: a Special Resolution Motion; the by-law; and have both of them approved in accordance with the Act. They would also need to detail their schedule of works and attach it to the by-law.
I have seen some providers online that charge $250 per by-law template. I don’t know how this price compares with obtaining a by-law directly from a strata solicitor, or what the end product is like.
Unit1 – There are several different types of dashed lines and they all mean something different.
Here is a document from SA that explains what some of them mean – see 7.16. It may (or may not) be relevant to your plans in your State.
And here is another doc for you to look through – see page 21:
https://www.lpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/143078/Strata_Plans_Fast_Facts.pdf
I believe that it may be unreasonable for the Committee to curtail the renovations due to lift usage. Are lift usage restrictions placed on any other Lots? I wouldn’t think so.
Some of the renovations may be so minor that they may only require a couple of trips in the lift. Why should the OC get in the way of these types of renovations?
How is this any more onerous or inconvenient on the occupants of the building than the usage of the lift by a family of 5 who may live in a 3BRM apartment and who may not be renovating but may make at least 15 individual trips in the lift in one day?
Lets be reasonable and not be obstructive. Unreasonable decisions give strata a bad name.
zorro – This issue depends upon how strictly your OC applies the “appearance of a Lot” by-law.
In QLD (my home state) the Tribunals have generally determined that unless there is a condition in the “Appearance of a Lot” by-law that specifically calls for “strict uniformity” then minor appearance differences should not cause a problem.
At all times the OC must act reasonably in their decision making. There could be an argument that the OC are being unreasonable under the circumstances that you have described.
If your colour choice is sensible and not unreasonably offensive then if I was you I would undertake the painting and see what happens i.e. just do it.