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Mark – In NSW, once the Strata Plan is Registered and 30% of the Units in that Plan (by unit entitlement) have been sold, the Developer then has two (2) months to convene and hold a General Meeting, where one of the compulsory items for resolution by those Proprietors in attendance is the appointment of a Strata Manager.
The resolution taken by the Owners Corporation of Deliria1’s Plan is a good way to proceed.
Dragonfly – it depends upon the reason/s for the over expenditure and whether that’s a “one off”, due to a number of matters, or is symptomatic of regular under estimations of expenditure possibly due to Proprietors’ reluctance to match their collective Levy Contributions to a properly calculated budget.
There are two (2) reports that are generally called “Strata Reports”, one (under S108 of the Act) contains details of the Plan’s insurance policy, the amount of the Levy Contributions applicable to the Lot, any amounts outstanding by the current Proprietor, and the current balance of the Admin. and Sinking Funds. The second report (under S109 of the Act) contains all of the above plus details of all expenditure for the past two (2) years, the Plan’s 10 year expense plan, details of any special levies past or planned, minutes of past General Meetings or at least a summary of significant items such as disputes, By-Laws, and any planned building works (that may or may not have been budgeted), and more….
If it’s the S108 Report that you have, then ask for one under S109, and if you have the latter already then you need to read it more carefully or ask the person who provided it for some explanations; there may be a perfectly reasonable one, but right now you don’t know what that is.
Tracer – We have one E/C Member who’s in the building trade and always provides a first class service to our Plan, but in addition to him providing quotes and abstaining from votes on the proposal concerned, I’ve had to ensure that all quotes, including his, come directly to me as Secretary.
Why? Well, when he was privy to the amount of the competing quotes as they came in, he would always quote lower and, prior to my arrival, would always win the work, and in the end we had difficulties getting other tradespeople to quote – because the E/C Member either got the job or the job didn’t proceed.
No problems now though, because I receive the quotes, our E/C Member abstains from voting, he still wins around 60% of the work, still does a good job, and as I e-mail those tradespeople who miss out to briefly thank them for quoting and to tell them who won the job, and always pay before the due date, we never have problems getting quotes.
As each Lot in your Plan has at least one carspace, other than for reasons of being too lazy to walk from there to the buiilding’s entry, there’s no reason why all residents with bicycles couldn’t use their carspace for the storage of those.
I would certainly put a stop to the practice of residents storing their bicycles under the stairwell, because as you said, it looks messy, it’s damaging the Common Property, and all that will certainly get worse unless your Plan’s Executive Committee puts a stop to it; with a barrier if necessary.
The only issue is the security of those bicycles that are stored in carspaces, particularly as you advise there’s no no garden or outdoor Common Property available for a communal bike storage.
So if that’s the case, your Owners Corporation could facilitate residents’ bicycle use and the proper storage of those by resolving to select a style of single bike security rack that suits the layout of the carspaces, making that the “standard” for the Plan, and then offering to supply and install that rack in the carspaces of bicycle-riding residents, as an alternative to them storing their bicycles under the stairwell or elsewhere.
In that way your O/C maintains some control over the style and standard of bike-racks, and how/where they’re installed within Proprietors’ carspaces; and that’s not a bad thing!
Even though a decent single-bike rack could be supplied and installed for under $100, there are 140 Lots in your Plan, so the O/C would need to plan on a defined number of installations per year.
You could seek a contribution from interested Proprietors or Tenants, but the former is paying anyway via their levies and the latter would probably want a refund at the end of their tenancy; too messy!
Under the provisions of Australian / New Zealand Standard 3500.4 the fitting of a properly drained “safe tray” below all newly installed / replacement hotwater tanks is compulsory in all situations “where water leakage / spillage from that tank could cause damage to property”.
If a safe-tray is not installed, then any warranty provided by the manufacturer of the hotwater heater does not cover any consequential property damage, and if the provider of any contents insurance sends an Assessor to inspect the damage then that cover too will be void.
It’s good to see your acknowledgement of the efforts of Fire & Rescue, but I have to say that the paid services of a Locksmith would have been a much more appropriate option!
Mikey – this is all becoming a little confusing, particularly as you’ve posted substantially the same discussions on two (2) separate forums; your prerogative of course.
You mentioned in an earlier post that your request for exclusive use of the Common Property area that your vehicles encroach upon was met with a lot of discussion at the AGM, and yet now you state that “no discussion or vote has ever occured (sic) at any AGMs, EGMs or ECMs…”. You also mentioned in other posts that you were “unambiguously breaking the by-law”, and that “there was a lot of name calling at the AGM…. all directed at me”; so I concluded (a) that you’d been doing the wrong thing and (b) that members of the Owners Corporation and/or the Executive Committee were irritated by the whole matter and somewhat disinclined to consider it any further; was I wrong?
I’m most definitely not a member of your Plan’s Owners Corporation (O/C) or Executive Committee (E/C), but if I were I can assure you that the Motion to consider your request for exclusive use would have been properly discussed at the AGM, a vote would have been taken one way or the other, that Resolution would have been recorded in the Minutes of the Meeting, and if that (Resolution) was against the Motion it would have included words to the effect any further breaches of the Plan’s Special Parking By-Law by you would result in the O/C immediately making an Application for Interim Orders under Sect 170.
This whole matter is probably beyond resolution in the absence of assistance (and I use that term cautiously) by the CTTT, but I’d give it one last try prior to Adjudication by rewording your past Motion as may be appropriate given comments on FlatChat, and your knowledge of both what’s transpired since (the AGM) and the current situation, and submit that to the E/C Secretary for urgent consideration at a General Meeting. Can’t do any harm!
I received a telephone call from a Senior Officer of NSW Health yesterday (24/1) and the summary advice provided with reference to my last post is that “the Department does not intend that the Regulation (2012) to the NSW Public Health Act will be applied to any Residential Strata Development”.
I had quite a long discussion with NSW Health about this matter, and on the basis of that my personal conclusion is that whilst the Regulation could be applied to Residential Strata Developments in circumstances where the Owners and employees of Commercial Lots (i.e. in mixed-use developments) and/or employees of the Owners Corporation may have access to an on-site swimming pool or spa, it will not be applied.
(I have details of the name of the Officer with whom I spoke and his Position in NSW Health, but as I did not seek his approval to mention those details here, I did not do so).
Mickey hasn’t clarified ownership of the carspaces but from what I’ve read on his previous posts on the topic, that by the way go back 12 months, I’m almost certain they’re part of his Lot.
To answer Kiwipaul’s query about the carspace dimensions, Mikey’s other posts about his 3 vehicles “partially encroaching” mentions that one vehicle extends onto the Common Property by 1.7m over a length of 1m and the other by 0.3m over a length of 1.76m.
It reads to me like Mikey’s been doing the wrong thing for at least 12 months, and that’s likely upset the E/C et al to such an extent that they’re now not interested in his overtures about exclusive use, payment, or anything else.
Hopefully we’ll hear back from him after his next CTTT appearance for adjudication.
It’s good that you’re aware of the requirements with regard to your Owners Corporation’s (O/C) desire to add or make changes to its Common Property. Those requirements as applicable in NSW are shown HERE, and your O/C additionally needs to consider the items shown HERE where the installation of grid-connected solar at our self-managed Plan is covered and a copy of our Special By-Law is provided (gratis).
Encourage your O/C to do its homework as the pay-back is very much less attractive now that the State (NSW) and Federal Government have twice scaled-back the amount ($) of the gross feed-in tariff from the $0.66/kWh that our Plan receives to $0.06/kWh now generally available. Although, now that such subsidies have been withdrawn, the capital cost of solar systems has reduced by around 40%; strange that!
Solar Companies are now flogging the benefits of net metering (as opposed to gross) on the basis that the capacity of the solar system is supposedly matched to the estimated (by them) daytime demand of the Common Property, with any daytime excess going back to the grid (for a miserly $0.06/kWh), and where that grid then provides all the electricity requirements of the Common Property at night, when the Plan my well need it most (cost $0.28/Kwh).
In most instances, depending upon the daytime electricity requirements of the Common Property, net metering is simply not attractive in cost-benefit terms so unless your O/C has committed green motives……
Yeah – I probably should have said that I hope the definition would apply, although Graham↑5 could at least use the water quality and treatment criteria provided in that Schedule to qualify “properly maintain” in S62 (of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act).
I’ve now done the homework that I should have done initially, and NSW Health’s preliminary advice is that their Regulation 2012 does not apply to “residential premises” but does apply to mixed-use Strata Schemes and to those where employees of the Owners Corporation or the Commercial Operators could use an on-site swimming pool or spa. Begs the question – what applies to an entirely residential Scheme with a pool or spa whose O/C employs a full-time caretaker or on-site manager?
The Officer of NSW Health with whom I spoke has called me back once with this preliminary advice, and undertook to do so again when she’s clarified that advice, and the matter of employees of an O/C; a very efficient woman indeed! I’ll report back on this when I receive confirmation / clarification.
Correct – and additionally the Chairman’s proposal requires a Special Resolution where at least 75% of Owners present (personally and by proxy) at that General Meeting need to be in agreement.
Graham – right now the operations of the pool in your building is not regulated, but from 1 March 2013 the Provisions of the Regulation (2012) to the Public Health Act (in NSW) have been broadened to include pools and spas in a “hotel, motel or guest house or at holiday units, or similar facility, for the use of guests”.
I believe that definition would apply to Strata Plans, where the Owners Corporation is in my opinion required to maintain and keep records of pool maintenance in accordance with the Schedule 1 of the Regulation.
If you’re in NSW then contact NSW Health on (02) 9391 9000, and if you’re in another State or Territory then contact the equivalent Government Agency.
Mikey – I can appreciate your position, but firstly there’s no contradiction, and secondly you need to read the entire sections of the Act not just the bits that suit your personally preferred outcome, which other Owners (who together with yourself make up the Owners Corporation) may not regard as being in their best interests.
With regard to the Special By-Law that’s causing you grief, I note that you said it was put in place after you purchased your Lot; where were you when the Meeting was held and the vote taken?
On positive note though, your post states that that Special By-Law applied only to your Lot. If that’s correct and depending upon the layout of your Plan’s carpark, you may have a opportunity to argue for that to be overturned on the ground that it applies only to you, only restricts only you etc etc.
As has often been said on this Forum though, and as I’ve personally experienced, the outcome of the CTTT’s processes are is almost akin to winning a prize on a a chocolate wheel; they’re almost entirely up to chance.
Frank – congratulations on an innovative, expedient, and not entirely legal solution, unless of course the amount of your Plan’s expenditure on the WaterFix® project was budgeted for at a General Meeting, and the individual Lot Owners or Residents and not the Owners Corporation (O/C) were the authorised recipients of that highly subsidised service.
Regrettably, our Plan is not in Sydney Water’s area so WaterFix® is not an option for our Owners, but that leads me to another matter that I believe your O/C, as the body who’s really responsible for the maintenance of the whole of the complex, should investigate before committing to the fitting of those wireless water meters.
That matter is whether the O/C is or can be legally authorised to on-sell Sydney Water’s potable supply, because that’s what you’re proposing unless of course Sydney Water is going to itself read those meters and invoice the Lot Owners directly.
I’d be interested to know how you go with that.