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Mr Wong – Your By-law is too wordy. All owners must comply with the SSMA 2015.
You would not then need to list all of the separate items that Minor Renovations cover or the separate conditions as the conditions about damage etc are already contained within the Act.
You may add additional conditions to a Minor Renovations By-law but these conditions must comply with the Act and they must be reasonable.
As a suggestion some reasonable additional conditions could include that:
(1) a licensed tradesperson be engaged, with appropriate insurance, and
(2) an engineer’s certificate be obtained for structural work including reconfiguring of walls (all at the owner’s cost) and
(3) the approval for installation of new or replacement timber or other hard floors such as tiles is conditional upon compliance with the 3 Star AAAC Guideline for Apartment and Townhouse Acoustic Rating, and the owner warrants to remove the hard flooring and reinstall carpet if the hard floor is found to provide inadequate acoustic installation, and
(4) hard floors will not be approved for bedroom areas due to noise transmission at night, and
(5) the strata owner maintains any items installed in good repair, at the owner’s cost.
The following site may be useful: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9fb2190c-9b84-42c3-9671-18e228f7539e
As is: https://www.ocn.org.au/book/export/html/1409
The owners corporation can delegate permission for minor renovations to the strata committee. It would need to pass a by-law to do so.
By-laws are not the same as the Strata Plan.
I suggest that you ask your Strata Manager for a copy of the By-laws. If you don’t have a Strata Manager then ask a member of your Committee for a copy. If the garage has been granted to the Lot owner as Exclusive Use then all of the conditions etc will be contained in the By-laws.
By-laws must be reasonable. They cannot be unjust.
By-laws, even Exclusive Use By-laws, can be amended either: on request of and with permission from the owner who has the Exclusive Use OR; by Order of the Tribunal if the Lot owner unreasonably refuses consent to amend the By-law.
It is far easier, cheaper, and less stressful to go down the route of obtaining the Lot owner’s permission for an amendment to an Exclusive Use By-law.
Can you come to some arrangement about access that is not going to inconvenience the Lot owner who holds the Exclusive Use?
Or is the door to the storage locker able to relocated to a different position that does not impact the Exclusive Use?
Is the garage a proper garage with a secured roller door etc or is merely an open garage space?
What are the conditions of the Exclusive Use by-law for the garage? Does the Exclusive Use by-law mention anything about access?
My mistake, Hood. Thank you.
It is not mandatory to use a Quantity surveyor although that is obviously the best thing to do.
[s80(6)] SSMA 2015 states:
(6) An owners corporation may engage expert assistance in the preparation of a plan under this section.
Note the word “may”.
My scheme uses Solutions in Engineering https://www.solutionsinengineering.com/
This company appears to have Australia wide coverage so you may find that they will visit your site.
https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ssma2015242/s80.html
peaceandquiet – Unfortunately selfish people live everywhere – in strata high density units, in strata low density units, in semi detached dwellings, in detached dwellings, in suburbia, in cities, in country towns, by the beach etc. It happens.
Strata by-laws have noise and nuisance provisions but sadly not all occupants all of the time abide by them.
Have you gone through all of the steps here:
https://www.epa.vic.gov.au/your-environment/noise/residential-noise/noisy-neighbours
Are the noisy neighbours tenants, or are they owners? If they are tenants can you contact their Agent?
Click the embedded link – this may help:
A copy of the registered strata plan can be purchased from LPI’s approved information brokers.
This info was sourced from here:
https://www.lpi.nsw.gov.au/about_lpi/strata_scheme_questions/strata_scheme_laws
I have also read somewhere that this site may be helpful for accessing strata plans: https://www.saiglobal.com/property/.
If you are in Sydney you could visit their office and perhaps obtain a copy over the counter (for a fee). Contact details are here: https://www.lpi.nsw.gov.au/about_lpi/contact_us
BONNIE L – Contact your Strata Manager and/or a member of your Executive Committee ASAP and ask them about the water meters. If there is just one common water meter then you should also be asking how the lots are billed for the water usage of each individual lot.
A common water meter is not unusual in older buildings in NSW.
See below for a link to an article that might help explain this issue for you:
https://greenstrata.com.au/topic/understand-water-metering-billing-strata
I agree with Scotlandx’s well made points about Workcover and employees. To add further to Scotlandx’s comments, it is not only employees that an OC should be concerned about.
We can’t forget that the OC owes a duty of care to all occupants and visitors to ensure their safety both on, and regarding, the common property.
If an accident was to occur then, in determining whether the OC had breached a duty of care, the essential question is whether the OC knew or ought to have known that an element of the common property was dangerous and that the OC failed to take precautions to address the danger.
The WHS has identified several problem issues in their Report. The OC now has knowledge of the dangers. Balcony heights that are lower than the current BCA codes are an obvious hazard to children.
Although a failure to comply retrospectively with building laws may not be determinative of liability, is it worth the risk?
See two important links below:
https://www.lookupstrata.com.au/balustrades-regulations-strata-liability/
https://www.lookupstrata.com.au/nsw-older-building-safety-maintenance/
Jinx – Does your strata building only have one common water meter? Or does it have individual water meters for each lot?
The under height balcony balustrades may not need to be fully replaced. There may be several ways to safely extend the height to the legal height for a relatively small amount of money. Maybe worth investigating.
You are absolutely correct JT. But for how long will the status quo remain … that’s the big question. City of Sydney Council appears pretty keen to change the status quo, not only for itself but for the whole of NSW. From their site:
“Under current planning controls tourist and visitor accommodation is not allowed in residential zones and residential and tourist accommodation in the same building must be on separate floors accessed by separate lifts.
We are recommending a new definition for short-term rentals and a consistent approach across NSW – premises could be classified as ‘exempt’ development where they meet certain requirements, such as limiting the number of days they can be let in a year and the number of people staying. If short-term letting does not meet the requirements it would not be permitted.”
If the City of Sydney has this attitude towards the existing planning laws would they then be prepared to vigorously prosecute those who do not comply, or would they instead ‘slow walk’ these cases until they get the result that they want?
Jane – Planning rules and permissions are issues for the respective local authorities as you correctly point out. Approvals usually don’t restrict short term use, but that can vary from building to building. Short term tenure is generally still classified as meeting the requirements for ‘residential’ use unless expressly stated otherwise.
Even if your building had strict planning rules your OC cannot enforce the council’s requirements. This is outside of your OC’s authority. The only thing that your OC can do is to complain to council about the lack of compliance with the planning approval. It is then up to the council to take this matter further.
david2708 –
Below is an extract from the Strataman site. It should answer your questions:
“The provisions of the Work Health & Safety Act 2011 and the Work Health & Safety Regulation 2011 require that the Owners Corporation provide and maintain the common property to
- ensure it’s safe and without risk to the health of contractors and others who may use it
- agree to undertake ongoing risk management assessment to identify and eliminate any such risks
One way to undertake such risk management is to have an independent expert inspect the common property and report to the Owners Corporation any identified risks. This is commonly known as a Safety Audit or a Work Health & Safety Audit. Once notified, the Owners Corporation MUST address the risk(s) and repair the common property as required. Failure to do so can result in severe penalties. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Public Liability Insurance requirement
A regular and ongoing assessment of risk is also necessary to provide evidence to the public liability insurers of the proper management of the common property in the event of a claim. The minimum cover is currently $20,000,000.
See NSW SSMR 2016: Regulation 40 – Insurance amount.Some more information
Safework NSW have a huge section on Work Health and Safety (WHS) which offers helpful summaries, information pages and even a link to the legislation changes which came into effect on Feb13, 2015.
Another section Safework NSW has is the one on on Strata Title Body Corporate – Employer obligations which discusses the WHS requirements for strata. So, if you need to know about Work Health & Safety and all it entails (plus details of the latest amendments, this is a fantastic place to start.
TIP – If you DO go onto the Safework NSW homepage, don’t forget to have a good look in the navigational menu across the top. There’s lots of sub-menus under the main menu tabs. Just hover your mouse over any of the tabs and the bigger submenus will open up.
Should you spend the money? Again, it’s far better to get anything fixed that needs fixing as soon as possible rather stalling or not doing it at all and then having to deal with the severe consequences, courtesy of a letter from a friendly litigation lawyer, if an ‘accident’ happens. Only then do you discover that your scheme violated one or more Work Health & Safety requirements thereby leaving the Owners Corporation liable for any litigation claims (and fines) that may surface. Besides having to deal with the lawyers, you’ll also have Workcover breathing down your neck gunning for a prosecution. Is it really worth the risk to delay things or, heaven forbid, not fix them at all? Absolutely no way in the world. You could be putting someone at risk of injury or worse, as well as breaking the law.”
Hi Millie – I realise that you are passionate about this topic and I respect your zeal and determination.
Can I address your point that short term letting is a “commercial use of a residential home” with the following answer?
Every type of residential lease has a commercial aspect – be it a 3 month lease, or a 2 year lease. The mere fact that rent is paid does not change the classification from a residential to a commercial building. If this were so then almost every strata building in NSW would be a commercial building as almost all would contain tenants of some sort or another. A 1 month rental period is no less commercial in nature than a 3 month rental period, or a 2 year rental period.
Is a person (or a family) who is renting a property for 1 month, or 2 months and 29 days a less desirable person (or family) than one who rents that same property for 3 months or longer? I hope your answer would be ‘no’.
Isn’t it therefore the actual conduct of the person who is renting the property that creates the problem – not the tenure or the duration of the stay?
There are already conduct obligations in by-laws and the Act. The conduct obligations and enforcement process applies to everyone; owner occupiers, short term and long term tenants.