Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
Greater Sydney
The following activities must not take place in Greater Sydney including the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong and Shellharbour.
- Auctions that people attend in person.
- Open inspections of properties, although inspections may be conducted by private appointment for one person only.
You must follow the stay at home rules if you are a real estate agent or a prospective purchaser and you live in, usually work in, or usually attend a university or other tertiary education facility in Greater Sydney including the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong and Shellharbour.
If you are a real estate agent or a prospective purchaser and you do not live in, usually work in, or usually attend a university or other tertiary education facility in Greater Sydney including the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong and Shellharbour, the NSW rules apply.
That is terrible. We have had two lots of major work that we have had to defer, electric works and some construction work to the front of the building. While these works have been long awaited, we decided it isn’t right to proceed with those works while everyone is essentially obliged to stay at home.
The rental agency may say it is out of the landlord’s hands but you are entitled to reasonable enjoyment of your property. You’re not getting that. I suggest you follow Jimmy’s suggestion and contact the Tenant’s Union.
No you can’t refuse entry to a resident who is not wearing a mask. But you can refuse entry to a non-resident who is not wearing a mask, such as a tradesperson.
I don’t want to be too alarmist but do you have the strata accounts, because from what you have set out it sounds somewhat like fraud, or at the least unauthorised payment.
I suggest you contact the Department of Fair Trading urgently, as the strata manager are not doing their job and may be in breach of the law.
How is the cleaner getting in to your lot?
Yes you can appoint acting members of a strata committee, and that would go to ensuring there is a quorum.
The appointment of an acting member needs to be approved by the Committee at a meeting at which there is a quorum. So you need to have it approved prior to any relevant meeting which the acting member may attend, because if there is no quorum it can’t be approved – circular, but that is the way it works.
In other words, if there is no quorum you can’t have the members who are present approving an acting member.
If the Rules say that something needs OC approval, then it needs OC approval.
There is no such thing as automatic delegation of the OC’s approval power. If there was, then there would be no point in vesting that power in the OC in the first place, would there?
So I suggest you ask the strata manager to provide you with the resolution of the OC delegating the power, either generally or specifically, to the Committee. If they can’t then they are wrong and privacy screens require OC approval.
(note also in some cases where there is a power vested in the OC the provision or rule will say that the power can’t be delegated to a Committee or person)
Yes, I own an apartment in Melbourne and owners don’t have a right to attend Committee meetings. The Victorian strata legislation is very poor.
How are they bullying/harassing you? In person? By email?
Yes, we never want to upset anyone, which is ironic when in many cases we are raising issues about someone doing something wrong, or not quite right….. But anyway.
If the owner has affixed the screen to the common property she needs to get approval of the owners in a general meeting and a by-law to reflect her responsibility for the screen. If you don’t do that, then if something goes wrong with the screen there may be a dispute about who is responsible. You can say to her that you just want to make it clear that she is responsible for the screen.
Ok – then if the issue is blocking of light, if you went to the Tribunal you would have to argue they are refusing permission notwithstanding permission was given when the same issue applies to your level. However, there has been a case that went to the High Court that dealt with a similar issue, and concluded it is not unreasonable to refuse permission if this would materially affect a property right (note this was a refusal to grant a common property right in Queensland).
Ainsworth v Albrecht [2016] HCA 40
Re entitlements – to clarify, I am talking about the lot entitlements recorded on the strata plan. If an owner has a property that is of greater value the lot entitlement will be greater, which means they pay more in strata levies and have a greater percentage of the vote on a poll. Usually where an owner is given exclusive use of a part of the common property you would expect to see the entitlements adjusted or some other form of compensation to the OC.
The OC has to have a reason to refuse you building a balcony. So, taking into account that your neighbour has a balcony, and the OC is fine with them rebuilding it, then you have to ask why they would refuse you permission to do the same.
In the absence of a specific consideration that distinguishes your side of the building to your neighbours, e.g. that you building a balcony would compromise the structural integrity of the building/common property, then I would say you would have a very good chance of challenging any refusal. This is taking into account that you can’t rely on NCAT to be sensible.
Perhaps you could raise it again with your neighbours and ask them why they would refuse you permission.
In terms of the bottom apartments having the benefit of twice as much land, you need to look at the value of the lot as a whole, which can determine unit entitlements. The upper level apartments may have other benefits such as views which would contribute to their value. That said, if there has been exclusive use allowed to specific apartments, the increase in value of those apartments should have been taken into account at the time, with a view to whether the unit entitlements should be changed.
That’s a tricky one. The real estate agent is not the party collecting the information, which is where the Privacy Act obligations usually start. So the $3 million turnover question is moot.
However, the disclosure of the strata roll information by the strata manager is permitted to the extent it is required or authorised by law. In this case you can disclose it for purposes within the Strata Schemes Management Act – it’s reasonable to say what the real estate agent is doing is outside those parameters.
That leaves you with the issue of how you control a third party using information in this way. I suggest you contact the strata manager and ask them to tell the real estate agent that use of the information in this way is not acceptable and he should cease immediately. You could also tell the real estate agent he is doing more damage to his business than good.
I am not a big fan of cats, primarily because of the damage they do to wildlife if they are allowed to roam freely – it is estimated cats kill 1.7 billion native animals each year. I believe if someone wants to keep a cat it should be kept inside. There is also the issue of their waste – I have spent a fabulous day cleaning out piles of cat deposits left in our courtyard after a cat owner left. But that is a personal thing. Charity is also a personal thing – if people want to support a cat welfare charity, that’s their business.
The issue here is an owner leaving out food for stray cats. We have a by-law that provides that food for animals cannot be left on the common property. That should deal with your problem.
An owner or occupier of a lot must not feed an animal on common property or leave food, animal bowls or litter trays on the common property.
A resolution of the OC can’t override the Act, so to the extent that a resolution purports to cut across the requirements of section 36(3), it has no effect.
In other words – if the Act requires payments to a Committee member to be approved retrospectively by the owners in a general meeting, then that is what has to be done.
I suggest you go to the strata manager and ask him/her why they believe it is ok to make payments to the Committee member when the Act requires approval of the payments by the owners in a general meeting. The minutes of any meeting are irrelevant.,
The strata education issue is slightly different, as it could be characterised as reimbursement of expenses. However, you could ask for details of the “education”, and query how that relates to the person’s role as a Committee member and whether it is necessary.