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This structure sounds like a pergola. According to the State Environmental Planning Policy (Exempt and Complying Development Codes) 2008, your neighbour’s structure could be illegal in a couple of ways (above the roof gutter and reaching the lot boundary). I suggest contacting your local council as well as your strata manager with your concerns.
See State Environmental Planning Policy (Exempt and Complying Development Codes) 2008 2.11 at
https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/epi-2008-0572#pt.2-div.1-sdiv.6
The motion at the meeting must refer to a specific by-law because the notice has to refer to a specific by-law. Here is a copy of a “Notice to comply with a by-law” form I once used. It’s from the Office of Fair Trading. The Strata Manager could also send a letter on their own letterhead.
https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/367841/Notice_to_comply.pdf
You could help the strata manager by having a friendly chat with the tenant and asking what their name is, what the dog’s name is etc.
Don’t be afraid to request a mediation session with Fair Trading. I’ve been through it. It took months. The other party refused several invitations to attend. After failure of mediation, we were allowed to go to NCAT. Our application was successful.
I learnt a lot from this forum, Q&A pages from strata lawyer web sites and the Office of Fair Trading. However, my brother is a lawyer. He advised me that I should always refer to the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 for the truth. NCAT follows the Act, not what some mug wrote on the internet.
Create a bookmark folder for strata stuff. Bookmark these pages in your web browser:
Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW)
https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2015-050
Strata Schemes Management Regulation 2016 (NSW)
https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/sl-2016-0501
Sheera, You should read through the entire “Division 2 Contributions by Owners” of the Strata Schemes Management Act (NSW) 2015.
A quick look at Strata Schemes Management Act (NSW) 2015 Section 81 suggests that you can change the levies at a meeting other than the AGM.
Paragraph (2) says “meeting”. There is no specific reference to “annual general meeting”.
If your strata manager or strata committee tells you otherwise, you can refer them to the Act.
It is very important to know who owns / controls the images recorded by those cameras. They could end up in the hands of paedophiles or used to work out what the hours when a home is unoccupied.
Victorian Case Law: I googled “Victorian case law security camera VCAT” and navigated through to the following case:
Mote V Eydlish VCAT REFERENCE: OC172/2010
To find the above case, I typed “surveillance camera” in the search box in the top right of the screen.
To find other past VCAT decisions, go to
AustLib Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) 1998-
I live in NSW. Our Owners Corp successfully applied to remove surveillance cameras which were installed without permission of the Owners Corporation. NSW also has a Surveillance Devices Act which forbids unauthorised recording of other people’s activities.
I have that “Who’s responsible” booklet too. I agree that it puts the responsibility for painting on the owner.
Do you have before and after photos to show that the paintwork was damaged beforehand? If the plaster work caused damage to the ceiling paint, the OC has to remedy it. The OC is only obliged to fix whatever became damaged during their work on the ceiling. Perhaps you could repaint the bits of ceiling that was damaged but not the whole ceiling?
In my strata plan, we have an insurance policy that covers both repair and re-painting. We had a water damaged ceiling. Owner was angry when I said that OC should not pay for the painting. We put in an insurance claim for it. The whole job was covered by the insurance company.
Paying for having Tax returns done. Strata Plans are all required to lodge Tax returns, so investment account or not. you still lodge one. So no savings on having the return done regardless of having or not having an investment account, as inhouse tax returns are usually a set fee.
“Strata Plans are all required to lodge Tax returns”
That is not true. Read the response from JodiH here: ATO community forum: tax return for strata group.
I am in charge of a self-managed strata plan. Our only income is levy income. I called the ATO and told them that we only have levy income. They marked our file so that we no longer have to submit tax returns. I had to put this request in writing.
This all started when I noticed that the strata manager was paying a taxation agent $130 every year to submit a tax return with zero income. We’d been paying $130 p.a. for an unnecessary tax return for over 20 years. I also noticed that the tax agent’s surname was the same as one of the staff at the strata manager’s office … one of many reasons we decided to become self-managed.
Just makes things hard for self managed SPs and adds costs to SPs who like to be hands on to keep costs down.
Agreed. I’m running a self-managed strata plan in NSW. Last June, I travelled into the CBD and lodged the form myself. Cost $146.40.
I completed an additional “Conveyancing Rules Exemption form” to confirm that this transaction was on a list which could be waived from electronic lodgement. (See point 23 on the list).
The lodge-it-yourself method will be replaced by “electronic lodgement network” from 11 October 2021.
Our only choice will be to use a company who will add an extra fee! This isn’t progress. We’re going backwards.
Jimmy, I used the form you linked. At that time, it wasn’t possible for me to lodge it electronically.
For anyone interested, the office needs to see the Certificate of Title for the strata plan. I numbered the pages of the form, appended by-laws, appended minutes of meeting which passed the by-laws.
conversion of WORD –> PDF: use the “Export” option in the File menu.
conversion of PDF –> WORD: I keyed in the whole thing by hand.
Apologies if the formatting is off. I haven’t used HTML in ages.
The Medicare Express app has a copy of my “COVID-19 digital certificate”.
Vaccination status should be a selling point for contractors. If I had to choose between two contractors, who were otherwise equivalent, I would choose the vaccinated one.
You could ask the contractor to show you their certificate before they begin work at the site. Unfortunately, there will be people seeking fake proof of vaccination. So masks and social distancing should always prevail.
Start by obtaining a copy of the strata plan. You can get it on-line from LPI agents. Your solicitor might have one already although it’s probably in storage somewhere.
The strata plan is authoritative on where your allocated parking is. And implicitly the committee can’t cut off access to your parking.
Agreed. The answer to your question is in the strata plan. A strata plan shows the boundaries of your lot. Everything outside your lot is either someone else’s lot or common property.
Your strata plan will indicate whether the space you use to park your car is actually common property. If it is common property, you will have to get permission from the owners corporation to park your car there. I know it sounds stupid if you have been parking directly in front of your townhouse for years … that’s why you need to check the strata plan and read your by-laws carefully.
I live in a block of townhouses where the strata plan says that my lot comprises the inside of the townhouse and a rear courtyard. All land in front of the townhouse is common property. Even the driveway leading up to the townhouse is common property. The space in front of my townhouse could accommodate a car but that space is common property. We organised for the owners corporation to grant permission to park a car on common property.
It’s not about getting free security surveillance from a neighbour. We had an owner, who used the unlawfully installed security camera to cherry pick bits of footage and use them as evidence for an Apprehended Personal Violence Order application against a neighbour. (The application was dismissed.)
The owner of the security camera was frequently violating by-laws and making life unpleasant for the neighbours. All of this would have been captured on the video stream. The owner would never be obliged to show self-incriminating footage to the police because they own the security camera.
If you really want to have security cameras, they must be owned by the owners corporation. This article from Kerin Benson Lawyers touches on the need to have a policy of restricting access to that video feed. If that material is not secured, anyone could be watching footage of our children.
A lot of people (me included) are ignorant of how the levies are used. The quarterly financial statement never looked like a fun read.
Since joining the strata committee, I had a close look at our financial statements and I read the strata manager’s contract. Our strata manager had a rule in our contract where they could spend up to $500 on a repair without asking for permission of the owners corporation. Every three months, I perused our financial statement and noticed many repairs costing $495 or $450.
If the strata manager sought a quote, the price was always exhorbitant. The strata manager doesn’t care about the price because it is not the strata manager’s money. i.e. If the work was being done on the strata manager’s own home, they’d get a better price.
Our owners corporation now works without the “$500 rule” (and the strata manager). Executive committee can advertise for a job to be done. We typically receive quotes half the price or less than under the old regime.
It pays to study your strata manager contract and every transaction in your financial statement. Go back a few years so that you get an idea of all the recurring costs and problems.
Call a few other strata management firms and ask for quotes. When I did that, the strata management price varied a lot. A couple of them had the “$500 rule”.
I would expect levies to be higher in a smaller strata plan and if there are paid employees (building concierge) and facilities like swimming pool, gym, elevators.
Our biggest expenditures are strata insurance, water usage (we’re not individually metered) and strata manager.
Hi EnterSandman
Here are two cases you should read:
Ghabour v The Owners – Strata Plan No. 53284 [2019] NSWCATCD (26 February 2019)
Lai v Community Association DP 270214 [2016] NSWCATCD 58;Here’s an article published last year by JS Mueller & Co about the installation of security cameras on common property. NCAT member’s name for both cases is Scott A McDonald.
I was involved in the successful removal of security cameras installed on an external wall. Breach of Section 108 of SSMA 2015 and Surveillance Devices Act.
In your case, it seems the camera is located inside the lot but attached to the front door. The front door is still common property. In my case, the lawyer for the camera owner argued about “air space”. He tried to say that even though the camera was affixed to common property, it was in the lot’s “air space”. The member kept reminding him it is attached to common property.
I would be really interested to know how you go. Good luck.
Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 says that the appointed strata manager “must hold a strata management licence issued under the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002”. You can google “NSW strata management licence” and see if the agent you are interested in holds a strata management licence.
Perhaps ask your friends and colleagues about their own strata manager? I recently went through the process of getting quotes from strata managers. I made up a spreadsheet to compare costs.
You should ask for a copy of the proposed strata management agreement and read it carefully. You can ask them to change the terms of the agreement.
I recently went through the process of seeking a new strata manager. I received about 8 quotes. There was a big price difference between them. I used a spreadsheet to compare them. Some have a management fee plus disbursements (postage, calls, photocopying etc) plus GST. With a spreadsheet, I could add all these costs.
Check your state’s licensing authority to make sure they are a licensed strata manager.
Some of the strata managers use a template strata management agreement. That template had an annual increase of 5% p.a. and a minimum term of two or three years.
Ask about exit conditions. If you are not happy with the new manager after six months, and the contract says you have a term of three years, you may struggle to get the strata manager to agree to an earlier termination.
Some contracts allow the strata manager to incur expenditure up to $500 or $1,000 without notifying the owners corporation. Make sure you are comfortable with that idea. I’ve seen a lot of invoices for $495 – intended to avoid the attention of the owners corporation.
Also, they almost always want to have unlimited spending for an emergency situation. I think you should find out what they consider an emergency situation to be or work out a plan that does not leave you in bill shock.
Ask them about their debt collection process: how they handle non-payment of levies.
See if the strata manager expects to do all or most of your communications via email / SMS / phone call instead of paper mail. This would help reduce costs and be faster.
Be clear about what is included and what is NOT included in the basic management fee. There may be a long list of tasks which incur extra costs.
The cost of holding the annual general meeting should be included in the basic management fee. Some strata managers allow one extraordinary general meeting at no extra cost.
How much does an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) cost? Is it cheaper if electronic pre-voting is allowed?
Check the cost of updating your by-laws. My previous strata manager charged $550 for adding a by-law change to an EGM agenda. Even though I wrote the by-law myself, they wanted to charge $550 plus the cost of registering it ($141).