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I’ll offer my 2 cents’ worth.
You ask if Council approval was required?
The easiest way to find out is to ask your Council
(a) If approval for such works is needed. Or more correctly, “was needed” at the time the works were done; and
(b) If Council approval was needed, it’s an easy job for the Council to itemise DA and BA applications by a strata scheme and share with you whatever papers were lodged and whatever the Council decided. If approval was needed, it would be the strata scheme in its name who needs to seek approval and not an individual lot owner.
Once you establish the above facts, you are then better able to tackle your situation.
@minklt
I agree with FlameTree and Alas, but go further.
(i) Ask the committee in writing and ensure the committee replies in writing.
The facts remains that your desire for a hook on a common walls notwithstanding is “minor”, you are indeed “adding” to or “modifying” the common property and so you need your work to be approved by the committee. The committee often will wave through such small works, but may also spell out their requirements. You don’t want anyone in the future arguing that you acted without approval and asking you to remove and make good the wall.
(ii) As to the shed, I’m at one with Alas. In your request by all means put all the details (colour etc). Also mention as well as anything you can find online that indicates that the shed you’re keen on has been erected in situations like yours. I did this when I asked for permission to install a storage cabinet in my car space.
(ii) (a) One more thing, you could take a photograph of how the courtyard looks from the street without a shed and indicate in your letter to the committee that the shed will not impact on how the courtyard is viewed from the street.
Compliance with fire orders is an Owners’ Corp responsibility not an individual owner’s responsibility. This is followed up most often by the OC installing fire or more correctly, “smoke” detectors in each flat. One detector per floor. So a one level flat would have one detector. A flat of the same size but on 2 floors (levels) require 2 detectors. If installed by the OC, these are connected to a common “fire board” located in say the garage, store room or meter room.
The very fact that such a fire board (to which the many flats’ alarms are connected) exists is proof of OC responsibility to install and maintain (and that includes annual testing).
If a “fire board” does not exist then it would seem that the OC decided that each owner would install his/her own smoke detector and with that often comes the individual owner’s responsibility for annual testing. Of course the OC could complicate matters by deciding to itself arrange for annual inspections those detectors installed by individuals.
Note: “fire board” is an electronic board that reveals if the various detectors are working fine or if there is a fault with one or more. It also identifies where the fault is located.
My recent experience may inform The Hood as to his next steps.
Ask the managing agent and committee for copies of ALL correspondence relating to insurance matters, say for the last 2 or 3 years. This should include
(1) emails to/from the managing agent and insurer;
(2) emails to/from committee members and the insurer;
(3) emails to/from managing agent and committee member; and
(4) records of phone calls of the agent and committee members with the insurer (and what was agreed/discussed).
It should not take long to discover the real reason coverage was denied. IMHO, coverage is declined because of something the committee or agent (on behalf of the OC) did or did not do. The records, if made available should answer this question.
Jimmy you are indeed correct. The plaintiff (applicant) needs to have “attempted” Mediation ie applied for, received a hearing date and appeared in person or via phone/video (as Strata Mediation requires).
After the Mediation session, the Mediator will send both parties a letter confirming what transpired ie both turned up; or one party did not and what if anything was agreed between the parties. In the absence of an agreement between the parties (that satisfies the applicant) it is that letter that opens the door to allowing the plaintiff to apply to the Tribunal.
Step 1: Verify on the plans of the strata that the balcony is clearly marked as “common property” ie with thick black lines;
Step 2: If you find it is “common property”, then
(a) List all the problems you see with the concrete (render falling apart, paint peeling etc);
(b) Take as many photos as you can;
(c) Write a history of when you first saw the problem(s) and what you did about them;
(d) Record what if anything the OC did when you approached them on the matter
Step 3: Call NSW Fair Trading on 13 32 20
(a) Tell them of the problem(s) and what you have done to address them;
(b) Ask what sections of the Strata Act you can rely on to compel the OC to do its job;
(c) Apply for Strata Mediation (a free service offered by NSW Fair Trading) between you and the OC where a Mediator attempts to arrive at an agreement between the parties. It is voluntary for the OC to attend and any agreement is not binding but Mediation is needed to have been undertaken (successful or not) before you can apply to NCAT (the Tribunal). Mediation can be applied for online and takes under 10 mins to do.
Best of luck.
Sorry for my delayed response. Your point is valid. There was no need for the quotation marks.
Attempts to regulate AB+B’s customers via the tax system is littered with so many opportunities for lawyers to have a field day trying to define what is meant by say, the word “permanently”, as the OP wrote (in regards to “negatively gearing”, which as someone pointed out really refers to the right to offset expenses against the income generated via AB+B)
“But only if you permanently rent your property
Others over time, and Jimmy in this thread, suggest the ATO may go out and hunt down these short term lessors, many of which may be coy with just how much short term letting they are undertaking. I agree they will be coy.
Instead of defining “short term” with the aim of tackling short term hosts one by one, I think the ATO should look for the cheapest way to snare these self interested, self centred individuals and I suggest that would be to levy a tax not on the thousands of “hosts” but instead to levy a tax on the payments made by guests to the short term aggregation platforms such as AB+B, Expedia (under its garage of brands including, Vrbo, Vacation Spot, Stayz etc) and so forth.
Of course the platform providers will in turn sheet home this cost to the “hosts”, so mission accomplished.
Without commenting on any of the opinions offered to date, I would like to share my experience with a similar circumstance.
In one of the stratas I am involved, a few years ago windows were to be replaced.
Some folks argued against the cost of the total program. Others argued that even a “cheap” replacement would be a hefty burden on a few owners.
Long story short, the dissent resulted in the replacement delayed many years by which time the price escalated a great deal (and we are talking some time before the coronavirus). Once the program’s cost skyrocketed, THEN the OC gave it the green light.
Those who claimed they could not afford the replacement could not choose to not have their windows replaced as the specifications for the job and insurance requirements required ALL defective windows be replaced.
A solution was found by the SC for those unable or unwilling to pony up the dosh at the stipulated time: they could enter into a loan with a bank (one bank was suggested) where the owner/s:
* Could stay living in their unit;
* Could have their windows replaced like everyone else;
* Would not have to offer a brass razoo by way of payment for the windows;
* The bank would “pay” the OC the required sum on the relevant owner/s behalf; and
* The bank would consider this a loan to the relevant owner/s and the funds which would be repayable
to the bank upon the sale of the property. Note, not upon the death of the owner/s.
That solution was accepted by everyone.
Thanks for pointing me in the direction of the WA case. It makes for interesting reading.
I think the steps involved and cost of any legal action one takes when seeking redress, needs major reform. As it stands in many cases, an injured party in addition to suffering from noise, nuisances and other inconveniences foisted upon it by a vendor or neighbour, is financially worse off if they take action.
The cost and means of seeking redress need major overhauling.
Investor 13, this is indeed a complex case.
I have some experience in going to NCAT against dictatorial opaque committees and want to share three points that may inform your decision making.
1. Kaindub wrote
Even if a party has a good case, if the case is argued poorly in a court, the chances of a positive decision are diminished.
This is very true. Irrespective of whether the NCAT member hearing the case is generally predisposed to an OC or to an individual owner, or to an applicant or to a respondent, IMHO one attribute is common to them all: they want the participants to the case to be quick, concise and on-point. There are no do-overs (at a later date) if you feel your presentation was poor.
2. JimmyT wrote
Let’s look at what section 104 of the Act says:
An owners corporation cannot, in respect of its costs and expenses in proceedings brought by or against it for an order by the Tribunal, levy a contribution on another party who is successful in the proceedings.
An owners corporation that is unsuccessful in proceedings brought by or against it for an order by the Tribunal cannot pay any part of its costs and expenses in the proceedings from its administrative fund or capital works fund, but may make a levy for the purpose. In this section, a reference to proceedings includes a reference to proceedings on appeal from the Tribunal.
So there you have it. The owners corp must raise a special levy to pay its legal expenses and you must be excluded from that levy.All well as good as far as it goes, but in my experience it doesn’t go anywhere, because s. 104 doesn’t spell out (a) what time line the OC has to raise the special levy and (b) what happens if it pays its expenses and doesn’t raise the levy.
I won a case in March 2022 against an OC who paid for an agent to support them at the hearing.The committee ran their defence, the agent was there seemingly to bolster their position. In 3 hrs she answered 3 questions she was asked by the Tribunal.
Prior to the hearing, there was no general or committee meeting of the OC to vote for her to attend nor any meeting to approve her fat fee. The day of the hearing she debited the trust a/c with her fee.
Fuming, I complained to the agent. Told the agent about s. 104 which either she did not know of (and that speaks volumes about some of those individuals who so-called “manage” stratas) or she and the committee had no interest in excluding me from contributing.Long story short, some time after I told the agent to educate herself by speaking to NSW FT,the agent informed me the committee agreed that I should be excluded from contributing to the levy and they will raise this issue at the AGM this Dec. This is NINE months after I (as part of the OC) was debited.
I called NSW FT and was told that the committee and agent are extraordinarily unreasonable and was recommended to take the matter to Mediation and prepare for a hearing at NCAT, because whatever the committee/OC/agent say at Mediation is not worth a hill of beans as it is non-binding. In my experience, at Mediation, an OC says what they want to say in order to buy time. That is, they often agree to what is asked by an individual owner in order to appear fair, with zilch inclination to abide by their agreement.
In April I applied for Mediation. It will be heard at the end of July. Quite a backlog at FT I hear.
3. Some have suggested you may need a lawyer.
You must first off calculate the cost of the lawyer versus your expected gain in dollars. Even if you lose the case, you are still up for the lawyer’s fee and if you win the case, you may still be out of pocket.
In one case I took a neighbour to NCAT and the local court for driving my tenants away with his noise (he renovated his unit, made an incredible racket over months and made living in my unit by the tenants unbearable).
Given I lost at NCAT and the local court, either I was not on-point or those who heard the case saw it differently to me.
After the case, while still at the local court, I was approached by a gentleman who introduced himself as a barrister. He noted that while I lost, he is confident he would win at a higher court (Supreme I think he mentioned) if he represented me as he did not agree that the court was right in its interpretation of the law.
But the penny dropped when it was clear that notwithstanding the tidy sum I was seeking may well be awarded in my favour, after paying his handsome fees, I would be in the red again.
So yes, lawyers may help you, but only if it’s cost effective.
The Hood wrote
It seems to me to be that the issue for the owner is with the dogs owner, not the OC, as I think it is the case that it is discretionary for the OC to act in such matters. Take the legislation surrounding the breach of a by-law for example, even if the OC is satisfied there is a breach the OC “may” (a discretionary term) act by sending a NTC; there is no obligation to take action.
The discretionary aspect is what IMHO dooms this provision to being close to useless.
Take The Hood’s correct understanding (at least I think so), that even if the OC agrees there is/was a breach a by-law, it can choose not to issue a NTC.
I have witnessed an even greater insult to owners: a SC member chronically parks on CP, a gross breach of our by-laws, yet (a) the SC refuses to list a complaint about this (by an owner) at a SC or general meetings and (b) the arrogant SC member denies she is in breach, claiming, with a straight face, that she visits the premises for OC matters and hence is not bound by the by-law. Why she visits, how long she’s on the premises and what she does there on those visits is not only irrelevant to her breaches (plural), but she doesn’t even pony up specific explanations for her visits.
Surely a better way would be to compel an OC to issue a NTC, which the “recipient” would then have the opportunity to prove why the NTC was wrongly issued.