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As a band-aid solution that is immediate, an inexpensive oil drip tray from an auto retailer placed on the floor underneath the engine might stop the oil staining the concrete.
Your By-laws don’t say anything about wall window aircon? I just put one in an investment property. My tenants think it is wonderful! I don’t think they are unfashionable (just asking), so why not place one in an unobtrusive window? Perhaps then, your strata will back down on their attitude toward you installing a split system?
In my apartment the water supply can only be turned off via tap under the kitchen sink. The plumber would have to gain access to my apartment to do that. There is a ‘tap’ in the front yard, but that would turn off the water to all apartments in the block.
$50,000 payment per annum seems a lot of money to pay someone to garden, clean and perform miscellaneous duties. Admittedly, we haven’t seen the position description and scope of duties, or the size of the block. A retired chap who needs a regular monthly income isn’t really the problem of the OC is it??
You haven’t specified what these ‘inspections’ are for. Nevertheless, if you are on the SC, call a meeting and pass a resolution for the SM to write to the company forbidding them from placing stickers on common property. If your strata building is fairly casual in its management practices, then send the SM an email yourself to do it, or if they are non-co-operative, then send an email to the company yourself requesting they refrain from placing stickers in the building.
While you might find peeling the stickers off yourself to be a nuisance, doing so will temporarily stop the practice and give you piece of mind until you can post an item on the AGM or SC agenda for the next meeting arising to change companies.
OMG!!!! that must have been so stressful at the time. While I feel sorry for call centre operators much of the time because I think they have a really shitty job having to deal with angry people all day over the phone, it is also frustrating from a callers end having to speak with different people from one organisation who don’t have carriage of your issue, and have to go through numerous annoying ‘security’ questions.
I also missed out on settlement of my apartment because the bank ‘misplaced/lost’ my father’s title he was using for a bridging loan. Although they did also pay on the penalty fees, it wasn’t much help to me when I had arranged removalists, utilities etc.
Ah yes!!!…….a roster would certainly keep costs down, except when 1. Residents don’t do their fare share of tasks on their rostered day and slack off 2. Residents go away on holidays and have to find someone else to cover for them on the roster, or the task is left undone 3. Residents forget about bin night on their rostered day, and the bins don’t go out. Putrescible waste causes maggots to spawn and the bins are overflowing because they haven’t been emptied for at least a week. 4. What is one persons idea of cleaning stairwells and common property areas i.e a quick flick with a broom, doesn’t match up to another persons expectations. 5. Some residents are elderly or have mobility issues and can’t swipe with a mop. 6. getting someone who didn’t want to ‘take their turn and hire a cleaner at their own expense’ is fine in theory, but in practice would never happen, because all people are tight with money and in getting things done. 7. Rosters require co-operation, and the main gripe on the Flat Chat forum is a ‘lack of co-operation’ in strata apartment blocks.
Well, there’s a whole forum of issues on the FC forum over annoying neighbours. Why not do a few of these irritating antics and then he will start to get annoyed with you, instead of vice versa. You could try playing loud music at 3am continuously until someone bangs on your door to stop, have a shower at 4am while making sure the pipes have water hammer that wakes up everyone else in the building, adopt a barking dog that won’t shut up, water the plants on your balcony so that the water drips onto the balcony below, hang your washing to dry over the balcony so that everyone has to look at your undies flapping in the wind, strap your kayak to the outside bars of your balcony as storage for it, run a business from inside your garage and park your car on common property instead, run your dishwasher at midnight waking everyone else up, rip down a couple of supporting walls without body corporate approval. OMG! The list of annoying things you could do is endless. Hopefully, he might start copying you!
Wish I could post photos so you could see the issue
But you can post photos…………………………
Sounds bizarre that an apartment building of over 80 units has generic locks and keys! Never heard of such a thing! If you are the owner, I would have changed the locks when I first moved in. if you are a tenant, you will have to go through the property manager for permission to change locks. As for your neighbour….why are they coming into your unit? What are they doing there? What telltale signs are they leaving? Of course you could set up security cameras of your own inside with a link to your mobile phone to record and video illegal entry, or hire a security company to do so. Security cameras are on sale at Bunnings, so hot foot it down there……..Or set a big mousetrap!
I have an inherent mistrust of all real estate sales agents. However, you could always take the listing off him, and find another agent if your current one isn’t performing to your satisfaction. It does depend on the contract you have signed with the agent. The professional photography belongs to you once you have paid the fee and you can use these photos in any other sales campaign in the future with another agent, so they aren’t a waste of money if they are reasonable shots. I assume the solicitor the agent obtained drafted the contract for sale. You should have got someone of your own choice if the lawyers fee quoted was too high in the first instance. A conveyancer may have been cheaper. In any case, the contract is also yours if you have paid for it and you only need change the names of the agent and the solicitor to new ones of your choice in future. Surely you were aware of these upfront costs before committing to sell? They weren’t going to do it for free! A photography shoot and contract preparation would cost a few thousand dollars max, so pay up with your loan money or tenant rent money and move forward, hoping to recoup your upfront costs with a sale. You haven’t stated where your property is located, but start doing some proactive footwork and canvass several other agents about what they can do for you, and to show you comparable listings of sales in your area before making a decision. You may be asking for too much for your property which is why it isn’t selling. Ask them what commission the agents charge and try to negotiate a lower one in a competitive environment like real estate sales listings. Be aware that you will also have to pay for internet advertising on realestate.com and domain.com as well as a billboard out the front and glossy brochures for prospective purchasers. You will also have to pay for legal/conveyancing costs on the sale of the property before everything is done and dusted. Don’t be naive. Prepare a schedule of costs involved moving forward and decide if selling is the way to go.
As I type this response, I gaze out my window to the apartment block next door to see my neighbours innovative way of storing their kayak……….by strapping it to the outside of the balcony railing!!! Happy New Year everyone!
More information is needed on the source and cause of ‘your big water leak’. If it was an OC responsibility, then they can lodge an insurance claim. I assume they would have done this already if it was considered to be their fault/ responsibility. However, if you were at fault or it was from a pipe that is considered owner responsibility, then you will have to pay. It always pays to have insurance, and that is the risk you take in not having insurance. $960 seems quite a moderate cost considering a broken balcony door handle replacement in my complex cost almost $1,000.
Just take one step at a time before talking about NCAT. You will have to see what findings and recommendations come from your report and if you and your inspector are of the opinion that it is an OC issue with waterproofing, then present your report to the committee, and perhaps have your inspector address them at a meeting, which may be more $$ for you to bear for his attendance. The committee may get second and third opinions of their own. The silly season is almost upon us, and I don’t expect much will be done to further your issue until well into next year.
The complex being 12 years old is not really all that old, and there are second had tile yards with boxes of excess tiles that can be matched to your current ones out there somewhere. It’ can be a fun project for a person with some time on their hands to go rummaging through cartons. I’ve done it myself with tremendous results. Don’t forget to take a photo of you present tiles so the staff can assist to send you in the right direction.
It seems from my reading of this issue on the internet that the electronic seal initially came about from COVID restrictions preventing people meeting and handling a common seal. An interesting screed on this, authored by Mike Ellis of Vincent Young solicitors, can be read from a ‘google’ search which gives the back story and legislative developments on the use of the electronic seal.
I think you should quiz your SM again as to the source of the seal you are referring to, as the pdf version doesn’t just appear out of nowhere and he/she must know. Even ‘trivial admin facilities’ have to be paid for as the SM is running a strata management business and need to cover costs, whether it is photocopying, emailing, phone calls etc. Heck, I even know of a lawyer who billed his client $25 in costs for the time he spent reading a ‘thank you’ card for work done. It’s true!