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I don’t know if they *should* be, but my experience is that they are. I found this out by putting a very controversial item on the agenda of an AGM myself early on in my ownership. What it does do though (at least in my scheme), is allow the person who raised the item to explain it and give further information, which is pretty valuable for those voting on the agenda item.
I’ve requested another item for our next AGM (not so controversial this time), and am looking forward to explaining the reasons for the motion at the meeting (generally the vote goes pretty well in my OC if there’s a clear understanding of the reasons behind the motion).
If you want to pay people, I guess make sure you get approval for the amounts beforehand, like you would with any other job. I guess in this case you want to also check insurances.
That said, we have had minor works performed by owners, and they are done on a volunteer basis, with expenses reimbursed upon approval of receipts. This has included painting, new signage (drilling into bricks), additional sealing and replacing doors for common property enclosures, high pressure cleaning of hard surfaces, replacing light globes, etc. Volunteer work (if someone was injured) is covered under our strata plan’s annual insurance. Obviously all of these hence have no warranty/guarantee, but don’t need it for such minor works.
@JimmyT said:
FYI: The proposed new laws will not be presented to Parliament until after the election in march next year and will not come into effect until 2016. Then owners will be limited to five proxy votes or five percent of votes in schemes smaller than 20 lots.
5% of vote in schemes smaller than 20 lots seems excessive, this is likely around 1 proxy for a 20 lot scheme, and potentially none for many smaller schemes. My scheme is smaller than this, I’m also a joint owner, so need a proxy form to even vote for my own lot… at our last AGM another owner decided to give me their proxy the day before, I didn’t even know about it until the day of the AGM, and signed the proxy form when I showed up to the meeting (the owner earlier signed it and provided it to our strata manager). With a 5% limit, I wouldn’t be able to have a single extra proxy if an owner wanted to give me one (like this instance)… Am I misunderstanding something?
What bylaws does your building have in place regarding transfer of noise to other apartments and requiring sufficient noise insulation of flooring (excluding kitchens, laundries, bathrooms)? Not sure where you are, but in NSW it would be very strange for a strata not to have such bylaws, and I do not expect tiling could meet the requirements.
Plus, whether or not there was an approval of sorts in the long term past for another lot, I would agree with your strata manager that you would likely require a special bylaw to be drafted and registered – which will have to be voted on at a general meeting. And I feel you will struggle to get support from other owners to tile your entire apartment at a general meeting (i.e. if in my building you would need a very convincing case [in terms of both noise and maintenance/upkeep] for me to consider voting permission for this).
So in my opinion the right way to go would be to firstly consult your existing bylaws regarding noise and flooring changes. Potentially discuss with an acoustic engineer if the believe it will be possible to have sufficient noise insulation with tiling your apartment – if so arrange a report so you have something to show. And after all of that, if you want to proceed, talk to a strata lawyer about drafting a special bylaw as your strata manager suggested to table at the next EGM or AGM.
(On the balcony tiles question – it would generally be appropriate to let your OC know (via EC and/or strata manager) when you would expect to be doing this work due to the noise. Consult your bylaws as to whether there’s any additional requirements.)
Thanks very much, I will have to look into Precision!
JimmyT said:
This may sound like splitting hairs but it’s not so much all owners collectively but each individual owner affected (which amounts to the same thing).
But isn’t that the point with someone taking over an area of common property, as discussed in the OP? Someone taking over common property affects everyone’s access to that area that used to be common property, but if the permission is granted no longer is. Thus I can see the reasoning for requiring unanimous approval.
My only thought is could it be something to do with license and insurance checks on all of your normal / recent / preferred suppliers (from cleaners to tradesmen)?
Even if it's something like that though, it doesn't seem like a reasonable amount, and I don't think our building has ever had such a charge, not that I've noticed anyway. Hopefully someone else will have a better idea, but I guess the simplest way to clear it up would be to ask your strata manager.
Budgets for the year have to be approved at each AGM. If you don’t think whoever estimated the budget has allowed enough, then you should be able to propose an amendment to the budget when this motion comes up. As long as the majority want to set the admin fund contributions to a reasonable level (to cover all expected costs), you shouldn’t have an issue. It’s not up to just one person, it’s the whole OC’s job to set / approve the budget. So you need to get the majority interested in the cause (aka deficit is bad) before your next AGM.
In the meantime, is there funds in the sinking fund to cover the deficit? I believe there’s only a certain time frame (around 4 months?) that it is allowed to cover it, before a EGM should be called to approve a permanent funds transfer (from sinking to admin assuming your sinking is currently covering it). If your sinking fund isn’t covering it for now, you may end up with a special levy situation (which most people generally don’t like) so that could be a good way of getting people interested in setting the admin budgets more realistically in the future.
Maybe an item on the agenda such as “Discuss and resolve the issue with regards to unapproved installations in common property roof space.” would be a starting point? Although if you request something like this, just be aware that your name may be associated with the point / motion on the agenda.
And, if the majority are happy with it, the discuss and resolve may result in the owner being allowed to keep everything there subject to a special by-law being created and passed at the next meeting for exclusive use and maintenance and responsibility for damage of the installation.
Over 600 apartments, that's a lot, lot larger than the complex I'm used to dealing with. And yes, with that many apartments, your share would be minimal. I don't think I could live with the issue as long as you have already, hence why I'd personally be onto my contents insurance pronto, but since you obviously can, I will just wish you best wishes with getting it all sorted.
If you have an EC then technically your EC could decide to issue a notice to comply at an EC meeting convened and run in accordance with the act. If you don't have an EC (which you seem to suggest may be the case), then you would require a EGM (or the next AGM) to have the notice to comply put on the agenda and voted on. At least that's my understanding.
As for the CTTT, I would think they would expect you to have tried to get this sorted within the strata complex (i.e. through an EC meeting or a EGM/AGM) before contacting them. I'm not sure if they can issue them based on a single owner complaint, so I'll leave that to someone else.
Normally strata insurance only covers common property contents, i.e. carpet, tiles, paint, etc in foyers. At least reviewing our strata insurance documents recently, that seems to be the case for our building. So it doesn't surprise me that they have informed you that the strata insurance doesn't cover it.
Whether the OC should pay for the replacement out of say the sinking fund then, well that's something I guess you would be best off with some legal advice about. And if that were to happen, I don't know what the situation in your strata is, but if there aren't enough funds to cover the replacement plus whatever other planned expenditures there are, your whole building may end up with a special levy.
Personally, I think such issues as these would be one of the reasons for having contents insurance. And then if your insurance company wanted to chase up their costs elsewhere that would be up to them. It would certainly get fixed quicker this way. *shrugs* (Yes, I realise you will have to pay an excess, but that may or may not be more than what your share would effictively be out of common property funds (depending on your excess amount and your building size).)
bpositive said:
Haha. When I complained to mediation – they quickly held a EGM got approval from the exec committee and passed a special resolution. No s31, no bylaws, no consent. If you have the majority you can do anything! As matters stand even today there are no bylaws. Additions by owners to common property have to be first approved. Not the other way round. That is the law. But CTTT decided thru adjudication and hearing that the fence stays for practical reasons. It is now a safety fence – what a joke!
If it was approved by a majority at an EGM, I guess there is really nothing you can do, as majority rules as you suggested.
I wonder if it's possible to resolve at a future AGM / EGM to take down the fence if the majority switches in favour of this, but I have no idea if it's that simple (I assume the resident with the fence would take it to the CTTT if a future resolution went the other way).
My suspicion is that you'd at least need the majority at a future AGM / EGM for a motion on this, plus if it seemed like you could get this, I would think you'd need some legal advice as well. Not a good situation anyway.
So the CTTT said the fence should stay? Because I would think the fence (if built without permission) would be the issue that could be rectified (by removing the fence).
Aside from that (if the fence was approved, or if the CTTT said it has to stay), as far as I know anyone can enjoy the common property (i.e. by sitting on it) as long as it doesn't interfere with other users enjoying it. I.e. if he was using that area to make a lot of noise would be different to sitting quietly minding his own business.
And is he leaving the chair out there, or taking it with him? Because if he was leaving an item unattended on common property which technically (forgetting about the fence) could cause a hazard if someone tripped over it in the dark, I would think that changes the issue again than if he's only taking his chair out when he wants to sit and relax (hopefully not causing a hazard).
Clearly I'm no help, just find it an interesting situation…
Sorry, I missed the fact it was a general definition of a casting vote, and somehow thought the “or not in this case” was in relation to being the 5th vote out of 8 (the not a casting vote but a normal vote). My bad, I just read it wrong.
But yes What is majority?, having any 5 EC members vote in a committee of 8 is safe. 🙂