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daphne – Makinson d’Apice is one of FlatChat’s sponsors so by all means contact them, but I don’t understand your problem; could you elaborate please?
db – thanks for clarifying that, and as what you’ve described falls within the scenario that I outlined in the 3rd para. of my post (#2) and as the toilet pan is on a false floor that I assume won’t be attached to the concrete floor of your garage, all you should need to do is give your Owners Corporation 14 days written notice of your proposal in accordance with Sect 116 of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (1996).
I say “should” because your Owners Corporation (O/C) could claim that as the sewerage line services your Lot and the other two, that it’s integral and therefore common property; unless of course there’s a physical point of connection such as a gully where your line joins the one that services the other Lots – but that’s a moot point that I doubt your O/C could sustain.
You’ll note that the preamble to Sect 116 differentiates between the structure of a Lot and its services, and that Clause 4 only refers the the former. However in my opinion, that Clause is intended to apply to both the structure and the services, that’s how I’ve always applied it and it appears from your discussions with Fair Trading and NSW L&PI that they are making the same interpretation.
So I’d go ahead and give your O/C that 14 days notice, but you’ll need to include an overview of your proposal, including hours-of-work to avoid your works causing a nuisance to the neighbours, and your tradespersons’ details as I advised before, particularity as they, their vehicles, and equipment will presumably need to be on the common property at some stage.
Can you explain how it is that both a water supply and sewerage line are in the air space of your garage, and how the sewerage line services only your Lot?
In a way preempting your response, if you mean that both pipes are attached to the inside face of a wall, and that’s common / perimeter wall, and your sewerage line is integral with one that services the other two (2) Lots, then I’d agree with your Strata Manager.
However if the wall with the pipes attached is an internal / dividing wall within your Lot, and the sewerage line serving your Lot has a gully-trap at the point where it meets the one that services the other two (2) Lots, then I’d agree with NSW Land & Property Information.
Consider also that under either scenario, if the toilet pan is fixed to the floor of your garage, then technically it’s being attached to the common property and your Owners Corporation could require you to seek its consent to do that, although that would be a bit finickity in my opinion.
Either way, you’d need to use the services of a Licensed Plumber & Drainer and provide their License and Liability Insurance details to your Owners Corporation.
ukirak said ….
1) I am concerned about what the outcome would be if they chose to and voted for a no pet by law before any further action is possible on my part. Can this only be accomplished during the AGM?
YES, provided the proposed (special) by-law is included with the Agenda for the AGM, and ≥75% of those owners in attendance both personally and by proxy voted in favour in accordance with the units of entitlement of their respective Lots (i.e. a “poll vote” as opposed to one determined by a simple majority)
2) Would it be more prudent to apply for a mediation myself and see how they respond?
YES; absolutely using THIS form, but firstly get all your evidence such as correspondence in order, and after you’ve lodged the Application pay your Executive Committee the courtesy of advising them of that; if they then change their tune you can always withdraw your Application.
3) they (the Owners Corporation) fear allowing my dog would give off the appearance that dogs are allowed.
That’s a largely spurious argument as the provisions of the NSW Residential Tenancies Act (2010) requires the Owner / Landlords of those 3-4 rented units, who don’t want dogs in the building, to grant their tenants consent to keep a dog before the matter then goes to the Owners Corporation or its E/C for further consideration; and it appears that primary consent would be refused.
Get cracking, but DON’T bring your dog to your unit in advance of Mediation taking place as the mediators don’t take kindly to the parties making preemptive moves that compromise their role or make it more difficult.
One of the main reasons for engaging the services of a Strata Manager (S/M) is so they’ll take care of the “financials”, and whilst it would be unusual in the extreme for that function not to be delegated to the S/M, perhaps check with them or take a look at the Agency Agreement that they hold with your Owners Corporation.
As for what to do, I guess it depends upon what’s wrong with the financial statements, where provided there’s no evidence of fraud and the closing balances are not too far away from what’s in the bank, perhaps “as good as they can get” is good enough provided the new S/M gets their head around things from now on and the Executive Committee keeps their collective fingers out of the detail!
As such a Special By-Law would benefit the Owners Corporation (O/C) [i.e. all Owners], then YES the costs of its preparation and registration (on the Strata Title) would be covered by the O/C provided of course that it’s approved by way of a special resolution at a General Meeting, where ≥75% of those in attendance both personally and by proxy would need to vote in favour in accordance with the units of entitlement of their respective Lots (i.e. a “poll vote” as opposed to one determined by a simple majority).
confused1 – perhaps read the posts HERE in the first instance.
Then, in the circumstances you describe where numerous owners both past and present have renovated their Units to the extent that the consent of the Owners Corporation (O/C) should have been granted beforehand, and other owners now want to, perhaps consider the O/C putting a generic “renovation by-law” on the Agenda of a General Meeting so that those present may consider and hopefully specially resolve to accept and Register it.
Such a by-law (special by-law actually) could, amongst other things, incorporate a provision that the owners of Lots, where renovations of a type that require the prior consent of the O/C have already been undertaken, could benefit from a moratorium of say 6 months during which time they could seek the O/C’s retrospective consent to those on the proviso that they agreed in writing to be responsible for all on-going maintenance of consequent changes to the common property arising from those (renovations), and to have all details recorded in a Register held and maintained by the O/C.
A further provision of the suggested special by-law would be that any owners who choose not to avail themselves of the moratorium by seeking the O/C’s retrospective consent would, prior to the settlement of any future sale of their Lot/s, suffer a notion on the Sect 109 Certificate provided by the O/C stating that its Register has “nothing shown” concerning consented changes to Common Property areas within the Lots; ipso facto any such changes are not consented and are not the responsibility of the O/C!
OK, those last six words (above) are a bit of a try-on, but just as the O/C’s consent may be granted retrospectively so may the provisions of a “renovation by-law” that’s properly passed at the General Meeting and Registered.
I’ve done precisely what I’ve suggested here for our Strata Plan, but as I’m not a Lawyer, I strongly suggest that IF your O/C decides to go this way then it engages one to assist.
twinks – the only way to definitively ascertain the boundaries of the common property and of Lots within a Strata Scheme is to examine a copy of its Registered Strata Plan, where the boundaries of the Common Property are shown as thick black lines on the floor plan.
If neither your Owners Corporation (Secretary) nor your Strata Manager has a copy, then you can purchase one from the on-line shop operated by NSW Land & Property Information (incorporating the former Land Titles Office), whose staff are usually very helpful if the information that you’re after is not obvious from your examination of the Plan.
dan – the EGM is a good back-stop in the circumstances, but if you think that your Executive Committee (E/C) will be unable to make a recommendation at the AGM, then if it’s not too late, why not change your Motion to include the name of the Strata Management Company who you believe should be appointed?
In that way, if the E/C actually puts forward an opinion, or other owners have one, and they’re different from yours, then the Motion can be amended at the Meeting, and be resolved accordingly if that’s the majority vote.
That’s quite acceptable, as the objective of the Motion is to terminate the Strata Manager, and who the Meeting resolves to replace them with is secondary.
Remember, that Owners who provide proxies to the Meeting must nominate how they want their vote to be exercised on a Motion to terminate the services of the Strata Manager; any proxy forms that don’t show that are invalid for that Motion – that may or may not work in your favour but in any case keep lobbying
bcr83 – before Jimmy responds, I’ll just make two observations:
1) If your proposed renovations involve changes to the Common Property, then a special resolution would need to pass in order for the Owners Corporation (O/C) to grant consent, but a Special By-Law is only required if the O/C then desires to transfer its obligations to maintain those renovated sections of its common property (floor) to you as the “renovator”, and thereby to all subsequent owners of your Lot; and you agree in writing to that. As I recently mentioned in another post, the rationale for that is that an owner, or more correctly their contractor, may be replacing developer-quality floor tiles (or carpet) with a high-quality / high cost / high maintenance flooring product with acoustic insulation for which the O/C may not want to be responsible.
3) Rather than an O/C having multiple Special By-Laws covering multiple owners’ maintenance responsibilities for changed areas of its Common Property, one generic Special By-Law can cover a multitude of renovation types by any Owner, in which case the Executive Committee or the Strata Manager (if so delegated in their Agency Agreement) can grant consent on behalf of the O/C strictly within the scope and conditions of that Special By-Law; i.e. without the need for a General Meeting.
Over to you Jimmy.
YES – because they’re your Landlord’s Agent, and because unlike you, your Landlord (as an Owner) has a direct relationship with the Executive Committee from whom you’re hoping for some action.
My previous comments were slightly tongue-in cheek, but seriously, why don’t you invest in a device that can secure your bicycle to the floor or wall of your Unit’s carspace (if it has one), and seek your Landlord’s consent to install that?
bcr83 said
1) I have already informed my SM of my intent to go through a mediation process, would I need to take send anything else to advise?
2) As our AGM is in March, would it be wise to take the mediation step first?
3) In order to have this tabled at a GM do I just notify my SM? Would I do this post mediation/adjudicator result?
In response to your further questions above:
1) NO, as Fair Trading will send a copy of your Application and supporting paperwork / photos to the Secretary of your Owners Corporation, but as your advice should be to the Secretary, just make sure that the Strata Manager is delegated that role, or if not that they do pass it on to the Secretary.
2) YES
3) Frankly I don’t know why you’d bother the raise the matter at a General Meeting as in this instance your Executive Committee is empowered to make decisions on behalf of the Owners Corporation, albethey in strict accordance with the provisions of its Special By-Law (SBL), and they’ve done that. However if you want to have that SBL amended, then I’d wait until after mediation, and if you still want to submit that argument as an Agenda Item to the next General Meeting (e.g. an AGM), then you can do that whenever you choose so long as it’s before the Agenda Papers for that Meeting are prepared and distributed.
Just thinking ……. if bicycles are considered by some to be a sustainability initiative, maybe developers should consider constructing multi-unit-developments (MDUs) out of more sustainable materials, like maybe bamboo!
Seriously, what are we coming to when Councils such as the Cities of Sydney and Parramatta (in NSW) will contemplate approving some MDUs with no off-street parking at all? Surely sustainability doesn’t really mean going backwards in both time and reality?
Anyway – I’ll get off my bike and suggest, as Jimmy also suggested, that jonnchan approaches his Landlord via the Property Manager / Rental Agent, perhaps with a suggestion the he be permitted to fit some bicycle locking device to the area within his Unit’s carspace; assuming it has one.