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Talk to the Committtee. Eventually, those trees will require maintenance and that cost will be shared by all owners. So it’s in the interests of the Committee to ensure that the responsibility for those trees is understood and properly documented from the start. No one can plant trees on common property without permission. The tenant may have received permission from the landlord, who may have received permission from the Committee. So first find out if any permission was sought and/or received. If there was none, then the Committee may agree to ask the landlord to remove the trees and repair the lawn. I believe it’s up to the landlord to recover costs from the tenant.
If the landlord doesn’t act, then the Committee may be able to arrange for the tree removal to be charged to the landlord. Alternatively, the Committee could establish a by-law giving ongoing maintenance responsibility for those trees to the lot that planted them.
Are you concerned that someone might pocket the funds instead of donating them? If so, you could take over this function yourself, or make a roster with other owners. Or if the amount is small, ignore this potential corruption and let this person be judged at the pearly gates.
Yes and no. My block is small with one lift and a gardener. Our levies are about $15,000/year and about to go up because we have a couple of projects in our capital works plan that need doing (or we might do a special levy). The value of each lot is about $5million, so the levies are low compared to the value. Why this high value with so few facilities? It’s because they are waterfront on Sydney Harbour. So it’s less about property value than the costs of maintaining services.
We are charged enormous land taxes (those of us who are landlords), so we still pay a lot.
I think you’d be approaching the owners first to get their agreement. There’s no need to pay for mediation or the Tribunal if the owners agree to stump up the extra costs. They might choose to do that rather than fighting you through the Tribunal (or mediation) which takes time and additional money, especially if they are supplied with a copy of that section of the legislation.
Unless the owner is a serial renovator, they may be quite shocked to learn that changes to the roof may result in them taking over ongoing responsibility for the roof (I say “may”) because nothing is decided yet. So this early process is informative for all owners.
We are at this same stage in my block. Serial renovators have moved in and are keen to make modifications. We are in discussion about what the OC is and is not likely to approve. No point in the owner paying for professional reports for anything that is going to be an outright “no”. Taking over the roof cavity (common property) for their hot water tank is likely to be a no. Putting aircon on the roof in a non-visible area is likely to be a yes with them taking on responsibility for that section of the roof. So it’s not worth them spending any more money exploring their hot water plan, but they can confidently spend money exploring the aircon plan in more detail. In fact, their aircon plan is likely to prompt the Committee to develop a broader aircon by-law that covers all lots.
If you don’t feel confident discussing drawings, ask for a physical walk-through. If they won’t allow that, then you can hold off having any discussions about their Reno. We had to do that with our serial renovators who didn’t want to provide access for the purpose of discussing their plans. Eventually they worked out that No access = no discussion = no approval, so we’ve moved on from that particular stand-off.
We have a common toilet in our block and I’d be reluctant to remove it. We recently had a tradie crew on site for 8 weeks and they were working in dusty, dirty areas of the property – I wouldn’t have wanted them using the toilet in my apartment.
You never know when you’re going to need a crew on site for a lengthy period – replacing the roof, the lift, rendering – all lengthy jobs. I suggest keeping the toilet and taking a photograph before and after any use by the belligerent lot owners so that there is evidence of who has caused any damage. You could create a by-law to the effect that damage to the toilet and it’s little room is to be paid for by whichever lot requests that the toilet is unlocked for their tradespeople. That might make your belligerent lot owners think twice about requesting that the toilet is unlocked for their tradies. Might be less of a “sport” if they know they will be held financially responsible for any damage during the period of access. And “responsible” can include both a fee to correct any damage (eg. blocked toilet) or a cleaning fee if it’s left soiled.
You could also contact your local beekeeping association which will be totally up to date with the rules and regs (and protocols) for backyard beekeeping. Your neighbour may well be a member, so keep that in mind if you are talking about specific addresses and naming people.
We had a problem early on where our Queen Bee was particularly aggressive, and this made the rest of the hive aggressive. We were getting attacked every time we went outside and our neighbours were stung several times. After some advice from the local beekeeping club, we ended up re-queening the hive.
I think the local club would be very distressed to know that your neighbour is creating ill-will about beekeeping. They have an interest in both the success of your neighbour’s hive and maintaining the support of the rest of the community.
Replying to Flame Tree (there is no Reply/Quote button underneath the post): Unfortunately nuisance bees in NSW are handled under the Biosecurity Act, not the Crimes Act. And under the Biosecurity Act and it’s procedures, it is necessary for someone with a bee-related health issue to provide evidence. Probably no one has tested that in relation to the Privacy Act, but presumably the OP doesn’t want to be the one to test it (plus the OP has not mentioned a bee-related health issue).
For obvious reasons, it’s not advisable for the OP to spray the offending bees, but some quiet words to the majority of other owners in the development might lead to a by-law that will solve the problem or give OP the basis for an NCAT complaint.
In the meantime, there are various non-toxic deterrants and the OP can look these up and try a few things to see what works.
I expect Council suggested Department of Primary Industries because every beehive is supposed to be registered with DPI and must comply with the Australian Honey Bee Industry Biosecurity Code of Practice. I don’t know what’s in that Code of Practice but it can’t be hard to find. Also this document might help you : Nuisance-bee-complaint-policy.pdf (nsw.gov.au)
My husband keeps bees and you are correct that they are attracted to light. On hot summer evenings when our doors are open, we keep our inside lights off and our outside lights on – that keeps the bees outside.
I don’t know much about how a Neighbourhood Association works, but it may be possible for you to engage the non-beekeeper neighbours and ask for a by-law to be created specifying that any beehives must be kept XX metres away from a boundary fence.
A warning about your pool installation – if there is a beehive in the vicinity, you may find it difficult to get contractors. We have trouble finding people who will work in our backyard (mowing lawns etc) as they don’t want to be stung.
You can possibly help matters along by asking your strata manager to arrange a few quotes because replacing one or more roofs will be a large project.
The quotes will provide the necessary data to confirm that insufficient funds are available, and at the very least your strata committee will know what the owners’ corporation is up for and can discuss whether they want to raise a special levy or save up for this work through increased levies over time. Depending on how well everyone knows and trusts each other, you may be able to have a conversation about whether it’s better to save up over time (recognising that if a roof starts leaking, it will have to be addressed with whatever funds have been saved and also the cost of doing the work will increase while you save), or hit everyone with a special levy. If some can’t pay, you can discuss payment plans for those individuals.
It sounds like there is no capital works plan in place, because if there was then this and other items would be on the plan and your levies would be set in accordance with the planned schedule of works. What on earth is your strata manager doing if he/she hasn’t been advising you to prepare a plan? Clause 80 of the Strata Schemes Management Act says that it’s a requirement to have a 10 year plan that is reviewed every 5 years as a minimum. It doesn’t have to be a formal, professional plan. My unit block has a spreadsheet with a list of jobs, the year we expect to do the work and estimates prepared by Committee members. But in your case, if the building hasn’t been properly maintained (which it sounds like it might not have been) then you might want to invest in a builder going through the place and identifying issues that might need to be dealt with in the next 10 year timeframe. You can then put a price on each of these and increase levies to start saving. You could ask the strata manager to put a motion on the AGM agenda that the OC develops a capital works plan.
Another option is for individual owners to take over the job of replacing their own roofs, but I don’t recommend this because once an owner does this, he/she is responsible for ongoing maintenance of that roof.
I don’t quite understand the drawing. It looks like the common property area (that little rectangle at the top of the diagram) fronts onto the street. If so, can you put in a locked gate that can only be accessed from the street by the various utility providers (as well as lot owners)?
If I understand correctly, the meters and such are in each of the back gardens, so not all clustered together but spread along the back of the building in each of the different backyards. If that’s the case, you’d need a series of gates leading from one garden to the next.
I just looked up the Victorian strata legislation and it says you have to give 7 days notice to the occupier of a lot if you want to enter the lot to carry out maintenance, repairs etc (unless you agree a lesser time, or it’s an emergency.) The lot owner must provide access. Have a look at pages 35-36 of this document: 06-69aa020-authorised.pdf (legislation.vic.gov.au).
So I guess you have two options. One is to instal gates that ensure access without dealing with the lot 3 owner. You can do this with money and a special resolution if you can get enough votes. The other option, if lot 3 owner is being difficult, is to formalise what’s in the legislation, with specific reference to the layout of services in your own building, in a special by-law. The legislation should be enough, but a by-law means should make it very clear to the current and future owners of lot 3 (and any other recalcitrant lot in the future) that they have an obligation. And you don’t then need to be arguing what the legislation means – it will be spelled out more clearly in your by-law.
You are effectively taking a loan from the contractor. Nice if you can get it. Check how much extra you’ll be paying and compare that with the cost of borrowing from the bank. It seems like an effective way of handling owners who are unable to come up with a special levy, but who are able to pay quarterly levies. You might look at putting those owners on a payment plan for those outstanding special levies. It’s not fair that everyone else is covering their share. Don’t let it go on too long as they are (or should be) accruing interest. Also consider raising levies so that your OC builds up a bit of a buffer against urgent capital works. And make sure that “urgent” work is actually capital in nature and not maintenance that should be covered by the admin fund.
Before replying, let’s first establish what state the OP is in – so that we can advise on the right rules.