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Before you or we go too much further, perhaps check that you’ve searched for the individual and not their company or trading name, and that the contractor is not working under someone else’s License.
JC – as the problem only occurs in some areas of the Plan it’s not likely to be with Sydney Water’s supply, but what did the Owners Corporation’s plumber report? How old is the building? Is its layout such that different water supply lines supply different areas of that building? Can any of those be isolated? Are units separately metered?
Sorry for all the questions, but they’re some of the ones that your Strata Manager should be answering on behalf of your Owners Corporation (O/C), because it’s the O/C that’s responsible for investigating and rectifying the problem, and depending upon the layout of the internal water supply, some strategically located in-line “dirt boxes” could both identify the source/s of the grit and capture whatever’s circulating within the system.
How to handle it?
Have all similarly affected Owners that you can contact sign a letter to the Secretary of your Executive Committee (or to the Strata Manager if they’re delegated that responsibility) explaining the problem/s as succinctly as you collectively can, and then requiring the O/C to within say 7 days and under the provisions of Sect 62 of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (1996), do all things necessary to properly maintain all its common property water supply network to both identify the source of the grit problem, and if it’s found to be associated with that network, to rectify the problem.
If your Executive Committee doesn’t act or respond with the suggested timeframe, then come back here for further advice about how to then force the issue.
Smyth – I believe that the new Certificate of Title will be sent back to whoever it is that submits the Application for a change to the names shown on it, so it may be up to you to provide that document to whoever it is that now holds that as security.
So whether directly from L&PI or via yourself, the Certificate of Title as amended needs to be held by your lender, and in addition you need to attach a copy of that or an extract purchased from the L&PI’s on-line shop to a Notification provided to the Secretary of your Executive Committee (or to your Strata Manager if they hold that position under delegation) under Sect.118 of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act so that your Plan’s Strata Roll may be similarly amended.
So it’s you that provides the S118 in this instance, and there are a number of proformas available by download from the internet.
Smyth – in order to avoid those hiccups, whatever is shown on the Strata Roll needs to exactly match what’s shown on the Certificate of Title for your Lot.
So if you and your new Wife want to change her family name on the existing Title for your jointly-owned Lot then first read THIS, then contact NSW Land & Property Information to see if there’s an easier process given the proposed sale of your Lot.
Then do whatever both of you want to do; congratulations by the way!!
If you’re in NSW, then as far as I’m aware there is no model by-law to prohibit smoking within strata-titled buildings, only sporadic prognostications by the Minister/s and his Department that have to date gone down the same path as the reforms to strata law; nowhere!
That’s not to say that your Owners Corporation could not itself resolve to create such a Special By-Law in a form that’s suitable for its Strata Plan, although enforcing that (for the want of a better term) would be an interesting exercise.
You may find some useful information HERE.
Felix – it’s a grey area that others may wish to comment upon, but in my opinion a non-compliance with S65A of the Strata Schemes Management Act would arise if anything has, without the prior written consent of the O/C, been placed through and / or been permanently attached to a common wall by an Owner; that is irrespective of whether that’s on the inside or outside of that wall.
No matter the condenser unit of the air-con. has been placed on as opposed to being fixed to the balcony floor (Common Property), the electrical cabling, and refrigeration and drainage pipework has been placed through and then attached to common property, and that’s a non-compliance that your O/C should address retrospectively by way of the Special By-Law that I previously suggested, that should cover all components of aircon. installations by Owners.
As I’ve said in the past, my opinion about “wink and nod” arrangements such as your E/C has used is that they’re all good until something hits the proverbial fan, at which stage things almost always go pear-shaped in a hurry!
Any Strata Manager who’s worth half what your O/C’s paying them should be able to assist in properly resolving this issue, so maybe start there.
Felix – as both Scottie and myself advised, the Owners who have installed the air-conditioner are not in breach of any By-Law and therefore a Notice to Comply cannot be issued!
Again, the learned Scottie and me advised you that those Owners are in breach of Sect 65A of the Act, and in that regard you’re quite right by suggesting that you and like-minded Owners need to quickly sort this out, because in my experience the longer such breaches of the Act are allowed to continue, the more quickly others perpetuate, and the more likely they all are to become “rusted-on” (pardon the pun).
In the absence of a relevant Special By-Law at your Plan, the Executive Committee (E/C) cannot itself grant consent to the air-conditioner installation (which whether by design or by coincidence they didn’t), and as only a special resolution at a General Meeting can grant that consent (or not), the matter needs to listed as an Agenda Item at that forum.
If your next AGM is too far away, then you need to speak with like-minded Owners and if necessary lobby more to the extent that you have at least 25% of those (by unit entitlement) on-side, at which point you can collectively “requisition” the E/C Secretary to convene an Extraordinary General Meeting just to consider and vote upon granting conditional consent to the air-conditioner installation, or otherwise to instruct the offending Owners to remove it and to return the common property to its original state.
If your Owners Corporation (O/C) does grant consent retrospectively with conditions, then as it would presumably want to enure that the Owners and not the O/C are responsible for the maintenance of the entirety of the installation, it would additionally require a Special By-Law to be concurrently voted upon in those same terms (i.e. a special resolution) in order to achieve that.
This is getting a little complex, so maybe come back if / when the General Meeting is about to be convened.
davidb said …..we don’t want to drain our funds on lawyers but hopefully the cttt will help us act.
NO…. keep away from the Civil & Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) – incorporating the former CTTT – and instead do what both Scottie and I have recommended.
Call the tenant’s bluff, have your E/C get on with organising whatever needs to be done for the greater good at your Plan in accordance with its obligations under the Act, let the tenant complain, and let the Australian Human Rights Commission conciliate on that complaint – because however poor their procedures may be (and I don’t know how they are), they couldn’t be worse than those used by the mediators at NSW Department of Fair Trading mostly as a precursor to attendant at the NCAT.
Gees David, I’ve never come across such a situation before, and whilst I understand how tenants would be aware of planned pest control activities (due to required notices under the Pesticides Act), how is it that this hyper-sensitive individual is aware of future activities of the Executive Committee?
The Australian Human Rights Commission conciliates on complaints of the types that your hyper-sensitive tenant is making, so with what’s going on in the Commission right now, I recon. it’s an ideal time for your Owners Corporation to call this tenant’s bluff by participating in the conciliation process; there’s nothing to loose!
One response is HERE but are you an Owner in the Building/s that you have concerns about?
Either put a note in the Owners Corporation’s letterbox, or if possible have a look for the Strata Manager’s details that are commonly displayed near the main entry to the building or at the entry to the carpark, and then write to the Executive Committee Secretary via them.
You won’t find a definitive explanation unless you look through the individual transactions in the sinking fund, or if you ask the Strata Manager.
Circumstances such as you describe are not ideal but are nonetheless quite common where one explanation, that may or may not be the one that’s applicable to your Plan, is where an expense arises that should legitimately be paid from the sinking fund, but due to an insufficient balance there it is paid from the administrative fund, but still booked (recorded) against the sinking fund thereby producing a negative balance.
The Strata Schemes Management Act explicitly describes what types of expenses must be paid from each fund, and in the circumstance that I’ve described here, the Owners Corporation has three (3) months to decide upon a means to fully reimburse its sinking fund, such as by raising a special levy or by increasing contributions to the administrative fund so as to produce a surplus that’s equal to the amount to be reimbursed.
Sorry all; I’m migrating north with Mrs Whale at present, and haven’t had much time to check flat-chats!
I agree with Stevecro on this one. My rationale is that the Agenda of an E/C Meeting is required to be provided 72 hours in advance so that Owners know about the matter/s to be discussed there, so that those such as Felix who have an interest in how something may be resolved can attend and perhaps ask to be heard, or even so that ≥30% of Owners (by unit entitlement) may actually veto the making of a decision on an item altogether.
None of that can occur without a Notice of Agenda, and again I agree with Stevecro that, as for General Meetings, an item titled “general business” is a great opportunity for an informal chat, but that’s all!
By the way, back to Felix‘s original post, I don’t think that the By-Law quoted there is applicable to the installation of an air-conditioner, but it rather relates to items located inside a Lot that are visible from outside, such as non-uniform window coverings and laundry items.
In the absence of a Special By-Law at Felix‘s Plan that provides the mechanism for the installation of air-conditioners, including conditions such as screening of external components, the Owners concerned have, by altering that external facade of the building, breached Sect 65A of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (SCMA).
In such circumstances, the Strata Manager (if so delegated) should be advising the offending Owners of their non-compliance with the SCMA, and advising them that there will be an item on the Agenda of the next General Meeting to specially resolve whether their air-conditioner installation may be approved retrospectively with conditions (e.g screening), or whether they’ll be required by the Owners Corporation to at their cost remove it and to return the building to its original state.
There’s a bit more detail about managing the on-going maintenance of the Owners air-conditioner and whether a generic Special By-Law may be advantageous, but maybe that’s for another day.
Millie …………..
Whale said (at post #2)….. a person holding an Owner’s proxy to participate in General Meetings could not attend ECMs, that only Owners could attend……
So the Department of Fair Trading agrees with me; you could have saved yourself the phone call
Millie – in NSW, Owners are permitted to attend Executive Committee Meetings (ECM), with the emphasis on the words underlined.
So my understanding has always been that under those provisions, shown at Sch 3 Cl 14 of the Strata Schemes Act, a person holding an Owner’s proxy to participate in General Meetings could not attend ECMs, that only Owners could attend, and further that Owners in attendance can’t actively participate in discussions there unless permitted to do so by the Chair.
So that’s the official line, but personally I don’t much care who attends our E/C Meetings so long as they behave themselves, and quite frankly I’ve been known to permit participation by long-term tenants where they’ve been able to add-value to a discussion.