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A couple of questions:
1) are you a tenant of your residence, and if so
2) do you rent through the same landlord as the party house?
It’s almost certain that the deck is Common Property that, in the absence of a past special resolution by the Owners Corporation (O/C) at a General Meeting to either absolve itself of maintenance responsibility for the area or to register a Special By-Law making the owner/s from time-to-time of your Lot responsible for that maintenance, is the O/C’s responsibility and the items that you’ve mentioned in your post should be immediately referred to the Secretary of your Executive Committee and/or your Strata Manager for investigation and maintenance/repairs.
The only grey area would be the stenciling, IF it’s not an original feature that was done at the time of the building’s construction; that is done post occupation by you or by a previous owner of your Lot in which case you could be held responsible for that component (only) of the necessary maintenance.
So put all the issues in writing as suggested, and by all means come back to FlatChat if any complications arise.
JC – It’s the role of the Secretary (of the Executive Committee) to convene General Meetings including those of the “Annual” variety, and if you have a Strata Manager then that responsibility is typically delegated to them under the terms of their Strata Management Agency Agreement with the Owners Corporation.
In terms of the notice required for General Meetings, as Secretary of our self-managed Plan I check the availability of other Executive Committee Members and then send out a Preliminary Notice eight (8) weeks in advance to advise our Owners of the preferred date, and to seek feed-back on that together with any Motions for inclusion on the Agenda, but regrettably the current Legislation only prescribes that a Notice comprising that Final Agenda / Motions be provided 7 days in advance of the Meeting date.
I agree with your statement that whilst the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (1996) allows for the convening of Extraordinary General Meetings by ≥25% of Owners by unit entitlement, and allows for Orders to be sought to vary the time at which an Annual General Meeting (AGM) is held, a strict interpretation doesn’t allow for an Order that requires an AGM (other than the first ever one) to be convened.
Perhaps that’s why the current NSW Bill for Legislation to be introduced in July 2016 provides that upon application to the NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal by an Owners Corporation or by an individual Owner, it may order the Secretary to convene a Meeting (read “any meeting”) if one hasn’t been convened in accordance with the Act (proposed as “during each financial year”).
So on my reading of the situation, part of your problem with regard to the convening of AGMs will be resolved from 1 July 2016, and the matter of notice could be resolved at any time by you seeking support to a Motion requiring the provision of Preliminary Notices of all such Meetings.
Paul – I assume that you’re a tenant, in which case you cannot lodge a complaint with the NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) against the Property Manager (Rental Agent) because the Agreement against which their performance can be measured, and actions taken if/when it falls short is with the Landlord, not you.
You could however lodge a complaint with the NCAT against your Landlord, but then in the situation that you describe, the delayed repair issue was not their fault, and in fact as the repair was the Owners Corporation’s responsibility it’s quite possible that the Landlord wasn’t even aware of it.
If your Landlord’s contact info. is shown on your copy of the Tenancy Agreement then perhaps drop them a line to let them know how slack their Property Manager is, but in reality you have no control over who your Landlord contracts with to manage your rental property, but if problems again arise then seek the advice of Tenants NSW whose Fact Sheet on repairs & maintenance can be downloaded HERE.
John said…..the new legislation forces all schemes to approve such routine matters by a special resolution which is a huge impost on all owners, including those in schemes which have dealt with this issue in an effective, professional and trouble free manner for years.
John – despite the fact that this topic is becoming somewhat of a novelette, clearly my communicative ability is falling short and so I just have to try one last time to explain my core opinion points being that:
- The current Legislation prescribes that any renovation works that an Owners Corporation (O/C) or an individual Owner may propose that involves an addition, alteration, or the erecting of a new structure on the Common Property may only be consented by way of a special resolution at a General Meeting. So Executive Committees (E/C) cannot currently make decisions of that type, and under the bathroom renovation scenario that you reference, any consent to that by an E/C would have no greater standing than the proverbial “wink and a nod”, and would additionally leave the O/C responsible for the on-going maintenance and repair of all common areas within the Owner’s renovation due to no Special By-Law to the contrary being concurrently resolved at a General Meeting.
- In addition to the proposed Legislation relaxing the consent procedure (above) for some minor renovation proposals by Owners (good!), it still provides an E/C with the ability to put a special resolution to a General Meeting of the O/C in order to have a generic Special By-Law (SBL) put in place to cover the renovation of wet-areas such as bathrooms throughout the Plan, that may well embody some of the conditions that you’ve mentioned. So to reiterate, under the Legislation as now proposed that’s just ONE special resolution, not one for each an every renovation as you seem to suggest, because once the SBL’s registered the E/C can provide conditional consent to all future renovations that fall within its scope!
- One last point – contrary to your statement that a special resolution (to a bathroom renovation) is the same mechanism that’s required to gain the O/C’s consent to wind up a Plan, that’s in fact the final step in what will be a very detailed and thorough process for the latter, and so your analogy in that regard a little misleading.
Anyway that’s all from me John, because for among other things, the Legislation will almost certainly proceed to Law this June and 12 months hence may be a better time to again debate its application.
Notwithstanding the issues of your neighbour not being an Owner and whether the ducted air conditioning system serving your Lot is yours or common property, you have done everything that can reasonably be expected of you in order to check that the external component of that system is operating correctly, and whilst it’s not clear what the ceiling of your neighbour’s Lot has to do with the matter, your “right” is to ask her to raise all of her concerns with the Strata Manager who’s paid (by both of you) to investigate and to recommend any necessary actions to the Owners Corporation.
Roof-Mounted Whirlybird
John – whilst I agree that a carefully worded and properly considered consent to an Owner’s renovation works by an Executive Committee (E/C) may adequately protect other Residents and the Owners Corporation (O/C) from inconvenience such as noise, and from activities by unlicensed and uninsured people, that’s not “supervision” of the works (and it never can be) and it cannot offer protection from the impacts of incompetency.
Have you ever tried to have post renovation waterproofing faults rectified in a timely manner and been fobbed-off to a sub-contractor who actually did the work under the license of the prime contractor who was rarely on the job, and then been advised by the NSW Department of Fair Trading that while it issues licenses to tradespeople, that doesn’t always mean that they’re qualified, it doesn’t guarantee that their work will be satisfactory, and that it’s on-line license checking service doesn’t list past insurance claims unless those were accepted/paid by their insurer.
Well I have, once and in a single storey free-standing property, but that experience was enough for me to realise that the impacts of that same fault in a strata property would be significantly greater, and that despite the best efforts of some E/C’s and Strata Managers problems do still arise from renovations, from waterproofing in particular, and so the NSW Government’s proposal that renovation works by Strata Owners that involve waterproofing of wet areas be canvassed more broadly by the Owners Corporation as a whole as opposed to under delegation by a well-intentioned E/C, that a higher degree of consent be required, and that workers hold a specific waterproofing license and provide a Statement of Compliance (with Standards) are all steps-forward in my opinion.
If individual E/C’s such as yours (and mine that includes construction professionals) are confident that they can provide the same degree of competency and scrutiny to Owners’ wet area renovation proposals as would >75% of Owners at a General Meeting, then the proposed Legislation provides the ability for such Committees to put a special resolution before its O/C and to seek its concurrence for the Registration of a generic Special By-Law covering the waterproofing of wet areas; thereafter consent to all such proposals could rest with the E/C.
Felix – as a NCAT Adjudicator won’t, upon application, appoint a person as a Member of an Executive Committee unless that person agrees to serve, then it follows that those Owners present at an Annual General Meeting (AGM) would be similarly bound, and that those people who do accept a nomination and are subsequently elected as Members must then appoint their Secretary, Chairman, and Treasurer at an Executive Committee Meeting (that for convenience usually follows the AGM).
So NO, Members who are nominated and elected cannot appoint additional Members unless those persons agree to serve either in person or in writing.
Winston – you’ve raised a few issues so I’ll try to respond to those individually.
Regarding the By-Laws – irrespective of whether those are the “model by-laws” provided in the Schedules to the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act, or to the Regulation, or prepared by a lawyer, they almost always lack punctuation and are full of legalese. So some Owners Corporations do what ours has done by producing some explanatory notes to each By-Law, that don’t form part of those but rather seek to explain how they’re to be applied at the Scheme. Any notes or additions that seek to do anything else or which are written into the By-Law itself other than by a registered amendment would have no legal standing, and would very likely lead to confusion if a resultant Notice-To-Comply needed to be enforced by Mediation or by the Tribunal.
Regarding so-called “code of conduct” – as the By-Laws of a Residential Scheme a primarily aimed at its Residents, it’s not appropriate for those to include a code-of-conduct (C of C) that’s applicable only to elected members of its Executive Committee (E/C). That’s not so say that such a document is a bad idea and in fact one has been written in to the ACT’s Strata Legislation (see here), but like all others compliance with it is largely based on subjective criteria and terminology. In your case it’s not possible for a member to be compelled to sign-up to a C of C, or to be removed from the E/C if they refuse to do so unless that decision is taken by way of a special resolution at a General Meeting of the Owners Corporation.
Finally with regard to General Meetings being held without a quorum – that’s possible but only if the originally convened Meeting was adjourned due to the lack of a quorum, and then re-convened after a minimum 7 days, at which time whoever is then in attendance at that Meeting both personally and by proxy 30 minutes after its notified commencement time is then considered a quorum.
As for what you can do about irregularities with any of the above, probably very little on your own, but if you can gather the support of some like-minded Owners, then you could collectively petition the Secretary of your E/C and copy the Strata Manager, pointing out the consequences should it ever need to enforce a By-Law that’s been changed/added to without a registered amendment, of the C of C having no legal standing, and of Meeting resolutions being open to invalidation by application to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT).
Such warnings would of course achieve little unless the Owners concerned are prepared to follow them up, where I’d suggest Mediation by a Community Justice Centre as opposed to by NSW Dept. of Fair Trading, and as last resort at least the strong indication that you’re prepared to by-pass the NCAT and to instead pursue administrative sanctions under the Corporation’s Act 2001 or perhaps the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (Corporations Law).
I may be clutching at enforcement straws here, but there has to be a better alternative to the conventional and largely ineffective processes to ensure that Owners Corporations, like all others, conduct their affairs according to Law.
Any thoughts?
If the rising main (i.e. the pump discharge line) is particularly long, then the noise could be a faulty non-return valve that’s “chattering” as the water within the main trickles back into the wet well / sump under gravity after the pump has cut-out.
VYou sound to me like one of those owners who thinks that the Owners Corporation is some entity that’s separate to and remote from them, who has this bucket of money that you have the right to access for every conceivable expense that relates, however remotely to your property.
The facts are that YOU are part of that entity, and YOU together with all other Owners contribute funds to that bucket of money that you now want to dip into in order to store your courtyard furniture and to mind your dog.
You’re kidding right?
Be thankful that your Owners Corporation is attending to the problems that you’ve mentioned after what appears to be a very liberal interpretation of who’s responsible for the works.
John – I’m sure that Jimmy can and will respond for himself, but in the meantime you may wish to consider that the exclusion of waterproofing works from the proposed Sect 110 may be related to the prevalence of leakage from incorrectly applied waterproofing materials, the impacts of that leakage upon other Lots and Common Property, and changes to the requirements of the NSW Dept. of Fair Trading that also single-out waterproofing as an activity now requiring a specific license and for a Statement of Compliance to be provided to whoever it is that has commissioned the works.
I’m not sure that so-called “routine bathroom renovations” would necessarily include waterproofing, but the proposed Sect. 110 does provide Owners Corporations with the ability to approve and register a generic Special By-Law covering bathroom renovations or more specifically the waterproofing of wet areas, and to thereby delegate relevant consents to its Strata Committees.
A great response by SnOwl ….. although as real estate signage is typically “attached” (the term used by dentOn in post #1) or erected on the common property, both practices in NSW are actually in breach of the Strata Schemes Management Act and so By-Law or not, they’re illegal unless approved by the Owners Corporation (O/C) in each case or more broadly under a Signage Policy as our Plan has developed and circulated among local Agents.
There are some items to consider with any such Policy though:
- that Owners have a reasonable expectation that the O/C will permit their chosen Agent to erect sale signage and so total prohibition would be ill-advised and consequently a few suitable locations on the common property need to be nominated by the O/C;
- that there needs to be a “trigger” for signs to a be removed by Agents such as within 7 days of sales contracts being exchanged or to avoid confusion, at a time that’s consistent with any policies that the local Council may have (because as SnOwl said – many do);
- that Agents usually employ third parties to erect their signage who may not be aware of the policies of individual Plans and so the Agent needs to be advised of any improper placements, and lastly;
- that the signage belongs to the Agent and so if it’s removed by the O/C that Agent need to be informed, and their signage placed in an accessible location for collection by them within a suitably short timeframe, and if not collected be then disposed of by the O/C.
susan – as you’re in NSW the Strata Schemes Management Act (1996) applies, where in response to your question Sect 76, and specifically Cl.4, sets out the requirements for raising a (special) levy in circumstances where a necessary expense cannot be met from either the Administration or Sinking Funds.
As you’ll read there, levies are determined by a majority vote (i.e. a simple resolution) by those owners in attendance at a General Meeting, including by proxy, so unless as Peter C suggested your Meeting was in some manner “irregular”, then the 5:4 vote in favour as taken there was legitimate.