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On the basis of my personal experiences with the Rental Agents/Property Managers who oversee the rental of Units in my Plan I too am critical; refer my original post on this topic where I stated that “they’re mostly the ones in the Agency who can’t answer telephones, who keep breaking pens, who can’t settle down, and who can’t sell properties — and so they get the job to manage them as they regularly migrate from one Agency to another“.
I should add to that by observing that most Rental Agents:
- don’t acquaint themselves with the Unit’s fixtures, such as the locations of electrical sub-board or the isolator for the water supply, or the operation of the intercom
- don’t supply incoming tenants with a copy of our Plan’s By-Laws and Special By-Laws or of Fair Trading’s “Strata Living” publication as the Act requires, even though both are “agent downloads” on our website
- don’t inspect Units during tenancies
- encourage badly-behaved tenants to voluntarily end their Agreements early with the quid-pro-quo that the Agent won’t place them on TICA (a bad tenants’ database), and so some other Owner/Landlord inherits them
- seem to select tenants on the basis of a social justice agenda, which is fine I suppose provided the tenant is also a potentially good resident of a strata community
- Have never heard of a S119 Notification, and don’t provide them
- Expect the Owners Corporation to attend to every repair and maintenance issue inside Units (and when I refuse, I’m told “every other strata manager does that”; well I’m not and I don’t).
I could go on (and on), but will instead say that the only mitigating circumstance to any of the above could on occasions be the demands of Owner/Landlords for them to get “bums in their beds”.My original post suggested that Owner/Landlords use an owner-operated Agency where Property Managers are more carefully selected and generally stay around long enough to learn the ropes properly, and under close mentoring by a committed Licensee, but upon reflection I’m even more inclined to Austman’s suggestion that self-management is most definitely the best way to go.So on balance – with regard to the best interests of both Owner/Landlords and Tenants …… Rental Agents/Property Managers are BARRIERS.How? Not in an easy way I’d suggest, as I assume from your post that your Owners Corporation (O/C) properly resolved (i.e. at a General Meeting) to spend its funds on legal advice, so whether or not that decision was prudent is of no consequence.
Even if your Executive Committee and your Strata Manager have acted unilaterally on the legal advice/expenses, the Regulation permits them to do s to the extent of $12,500 or $1,000/lot, whichever is the lesser amount.
How? Well as I suggested to another person in a recent post, try to obtain a copy of the Strata Management Agency Agreement that your O/C holds with its Strata Manager and ascertain precisely what they’re required to do, particularly with regard to the keeping of records/correspondence.
If you then believe (still) that they’ve been negligent in their duties, then you should peruse the Agreement to ascertain how that may be rectified under the terms of the Agreement, and if it’s not then rectified, how the Agreement may be terminated.
Remember, its the Secretary of your Executive Committee who must advise the Strata Manager of the O/C’s concerns about negligence, and of the possibility that a member of the O/C (you) will move at General Meeting to terminate the Agreement.
There are ways to possibly achieve all of the above via the Consumer Trader & Tenancy Tribunal, but that in my opinion is even more difficult.
No matter what course you choose, you need to get your Executive Committee on-side OR sufficient of the other Owners to support you in your representations to the Strata Managers and to support any Motion to terminate if that proves to be necessary.
.Daphne – regarding your Motion to remove the Strata Manager, remember that any Owners who submit proxies must specifically indicate their instruction (to their appointee) with regard to that Motion. Furthermore, most Strata Management Agreements stipulate that an Owners Corporation (O/C) must provide its Strata Manager with three (3) months written notice of its decision to terminate that Agreement.
The only exception to that period of notice is in circumstances where the Strata Manager has been negligent, but even then the O/C has to give them a period of time to rectify that (usually 28 days) before then deciding (or not) to put a Motion to terminate the Agreement before a General Meeting.
So if the Secretary of the Executive Committee hasn’t informed the Strata Manager of any allegations of negligence or non compliance with the terms of the Agreement prior to your Motion being discussed, and that Strata Manager wants to play hardball, then you may find termination a difficult task.
You still have a few days before your AGM, so perhaps take your Strata Manager up on their offer to talk – even if you don’t accept whatever it is they say, and try to obtain a copy of the Agreement; forewarned etc.
ps. 1930hrs Oops…just realised that your General Meeting’s tomorrow; us retirees do loose track of the date. Sorry, and again….good luck!
You’ve got me!!
All I can think of is that if you’re in NSW where recent changes to work health and safety legislation affects Strata Schemes where business activities of some types are undertaken, usually in street level commercial lots, somebody may have suggested to your Owners Corporation (O/C) that holiday letting is a business, thereby making your Scheme liable to the provisions of that Legislation due to the activities of you and the other Owner who manage your lots in that way.
Actually, it’s more accurate to say that the NSW Work Health & Safety Act (the Act) applies to Strata Schemes that are not entirely residential, and in my opinion if your Scheme is entirely residential then its exempt from the provisions of the Act and from its mandated audit requirements.
That’s not to say that your Executive Committee shouldn’t itself keep an eagle-eye out for potential hazards on its Common Property, or even resolve to pay a Contractor to report on those matters, but that’s at your O/C’s discretion, and if it goes that way its obligation is to pay for it from the monies contributed to its Administrative Fund by all Owners, not just those who choose to holiday let their lots.
As nobody’s jumped in (yet), here are my comments.
The Strata Managing Agent is working for YOU, so unless they’re complicit in some way in the underhanded activities that I recall you mentioning in an earlier post, there’s absolutely no reason for them to hold back any of the records that they’re holding on YOUR behalf.
That said, it would be fair and reasonable for you to contact your Strata Manager in advance to give them a heads-up concerning precisely what records you’re intetested in. You might consider taking another Owner with you; many hands make light(er) work!
In general terms, your Strata Manager will be holding all your Plan’s financial records, income and expenditure statements, copies of all incoming and outgoing correspondence, copies of any Notices-to-Comply (with By-Laws), and the Agendas and Minutes of General Meetings and of Executive Committee Meetings.
If by chance you experience road-blocks with regard to cooperation by your Strata Managing Agent, then (if you haven’t done so on this occasion) you should seek a further Meeting in writing and under the provisions of S108 of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act where, as you will be required to make a small payment ($30 for the first hour), you can reasonably expect your Strata Manager to do something in return – like assist you to locate the records that you seek.
Even though they’re Common Property, in NSW the resident of a Strata Property is responsible for cleaning all windows and doors of their Lot unless it’s unsafe to do so; and why wouldn’t a resident be prepared to do that?
Pt3 Div1 of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (1996) stipulates what monies may be paid out of an Owners Corporation’s Administrative Fund (Cl 68) and Sinking Fund (Cl 71).
In summary, estimates of expenditure on items and matters first have to be shown in the respective budget (for the above funds) for the year, the matters and items for which expenditure must be estimated are prescribed in the Act, and “gifts” to community groups is not one of those unless it could be classified as a “recurrent expense”, which unless it’s going to an ongoing item of expenditure it cannot.
So in answer to your question, the Owners Corporation (O/C) as an entity cannot vote to expend its funds on monetary “gifts” of the type you describe or any other, but Lot Owners as individual members of the O/C are free to make their own personal contributions, and for a worthwhile cause why wouldn’t they put their collective hands in their own pockets?
Jimmy, if by a “lease” you mean a licence under Cl 65B, then that would indeed be a less cumbersome means of allowing the Owner to use as opposed to own a portion of the Common Property.
I’m just not sure about that Owner then extending the built-construction of their Lot onto the area covered by a licence, after all the proposal is not for a fairly simple construction such as a tacked-on patio or a carport but rather for the more integrated and substantial construction of a bathroom and its associated plumbing, drainage, power etc.
Not saying it can’t be done under a licence, but just that I wouldn’t do it; but then I am the arch conservative and a stickler for gold-plating everything (a euphemism for doing it properly)!
What FCF said is correct, but I’d add that if the Owners Corporation installed the sprinklers then it’s responsible for the maintenance of them BUT if the Lot Owner has contributed to the damage, by for example permitting “other people” (like visitors) to park across the Council verge, then the O/C would be within its rights to seek a reimbursement of its repair costs from that Owner; I certainly would!
Morris – if the Owners Corporation (O/C) of your Plan wants to handle the sale / purchase properly, so that the Owner involved bears the costs of acquiring the additional land portion, has that shown on their Property Title instead of on the O/C’s Title, and has the Unit Entitlement for their Lot adjusted to reflect the resultant increase in value due to the extra land and the extension, then the process (in NSW) is:
- All Owners need to agree to the sale and to the proposed extension via resolutions at a General Meeting, which I believe needs to be unanimous for the former, so it might as well incorporate the consent for the extension as an “addition to the common property”.
- A Valuer needs to determine the value of the acquired land and of the extended Lot as proposed, and the Unit Entitlement for the latter.
- A Surveyor needs to prepare a Plan of Strata Sub Division showing the reduction to the Common Property and the extent of new (larger) Lot.
- The Valuer’s Report and the Surveyor’s Plan need to be submitted to Land & Property Information (incorporating the former Land Titles Office) for Registration of the changes to the Common Property and to the Owner’s Lot.
The Owner concerned would pay the O/C for the extra land based on the valuation, for the costs of the valuation, the survey/plan, and for the Registration/s.
Of course your O/C needs to ensure that full access to the pump area is formalised.
The Owner probably won’t wish to proceed now, but if they do there’s a bit more to be done with the inclusions in the O/C’s consent to the extension, but that may best be covered later
. The possibilities are numerous and somewhat complicated, but I’ll try.
One scenario may be that the first drawing was produced by the Developer, and it had for convenience allocated all parking spaces to the one Lot, and then nominally allocated each of those to individual Lots as each was sold; a first in best parking space approach. Then when the majority, if not all Lots were sold and their parking spaces allocated, the Developer may have produced a revised drawing to reflect that.
The second scenario may be that after the majority, if not all Lots were sold and their parking spaces allocated, the Developer then registered that drawing, i.e. the second one you have, as the Strata Title Plan together with the applicable Unit Entitlement allocations, which can be done without the need for an approval by the Owners Corporation.
The last scenario is that assuming either of the drawings produced was indeed properly registered [eg with Land & Property Information (LPI) in NSW] then the Developer could still submit and register a Plan of Strata Subdivision showing the parking space allocations and the applicable Unit Entitlement allocations. Again, that doesn’t require the consent of the Owners Corporation itself but rather the consent of all then Lot owners, but it does require Council approval either directly or by a Private Certification (most developers’ preference).
Whatever the scenario, what matters is the drawing that’s been registered as the Strata Title Plan (STP), which will also show the Unit Entitlement for every Lot and thereby give you an indication of whether the Levy amount you’ve quoted is correct (relative to other Lots). Visit the website of your State/Territory “Land Titles Office” (LPI in NSW) and use your Strata Plan number to search for and download a copy of the registered STP.
With regard to the making of submissions to the proposed reform of Strata Law in NSW, I think that the people making those have done so on the basis of the mostly bad experiences that they’ve had in the Plans where they reside.
Submissions such as the one by Jimmy T about prohibiting non-resident owners from taking up office-bearer positions on the Executive Committee wouldn’t work for me as we now have only one apathetic and totally disinterested resident owner in our 27 Lot Plan, and my Wife and me don’t reside there on a permanent basis as ours was a holiday unit for our family, who have now gone on with their independent lives with their own families.
Anyway, enough of that ….. What would work for me is a few compulsory By-Laws such as about finances and meeting procedures, and a suite of Model By-Laws from which Owners Corporations (O/C) would have to formally select and vote to adopt (or not) for their individual Plans, and then compulsory and consistently enforce those in accordance with procedures strictly prescribed in the new Laws, including for the O/C itself to issue prescribed penalties for non-compliance which could be challenged (or not) by the recipient using the Local Court’s Dispute Resolution Service, and if let stand (or not challenged) be collected by the Office of State Revenue (OFT) and paid to Owners Corporations, minus the OFT’s “commission” (take a breath here).
That was one of my submissions, and it would hopefully do away with the Consumer Trader and Tenancy Tribunal (CTTT), and with O/C’s who enforce their By-Laws selectively, both with regard to the By-Law itself and with the recipient of the Notice-to-Comply.
Jimmy T asked “is anybody listening” to the submissions?
I think in very general terms YES, but only to those submissions that support what the NSW State Government has, through the advice of its Public Officers and of the Lobbyists for the various “interest groups”, already decided will be the tenor of the Reforms.
That’s not totally a bad thing as at least there should be some consolidation of the existing Legislation, but I fear that without strict administration (read enforcement) by the NSW Office of Fair Trading (OFT) the status-quo will remain, whereby O/C’s and Strata Managers will either through ignorance or by deliberate actions (or both) manage Strata Plans in a way that circumvents and/or ignores the Legislation.
You only need to read the posts to this forum to see how the existing Legislation is so often deliberately ignored and/or circumvented, and sadly I don’t see that changing much post the Reforms in the absence of strong “policemen”, and I’m afraid that the OFT has neither the skills nor the arm-and-legs to be that!
Apologies in advance for being so negative, and I sincerely hope that I’m proven wrong!
Blue Swimmer – I don’t see the cost analysis as a scam, but rather symptomatic of the fact that the fire extinguishers are transported, evacuated, pressure tested, re-filled, and returned by people here in Oz who work under Aust. rates of pay and conditions, and the new extinguishers are sourced from overseas locations where the former is much lower and the latter almost non-existent. I know of one Plan that buys new fire extinguishers each year from a large hardware store as that’s cheaper than regular testing/certification and five yearly replacements by a specialist contractor.
I agree with you about the (undesirable) consequences of uninvolved and apathetic Owners and poorly trained and often overworked Strata Managers; they’re the main reasons for our Plan self-managing. Sadly the apathy prevails, but just not at the Executive Committee level.
Struggs & Scotty – thanks for the replies. The Solicitors must have agreed, because they just sent me a new S118 together with a properly worded Stat. Dec.; both signed and witnessed
.Let’s not all jump to conclusions.
Re Post #1 – I recall that fire extinguishers have to be pressure tested every five years, and as that means taking them away to be evacuated and tested it’s quite possible that it was indeed a representative of your Plan’s contractors who was seen to do that, and as all the extinguishers could have been originally supplied/installed at the same time, it’s conceivable that all were taken off-site.
I just found the pdf of the Invoice in the amount of $1,227.60 for replacing six or our Plan’s nine fire extinguishers in 2008, and I’d made a notation on it to the effect that it was cheaper to replace those than to have them pressure tested; sorry but I didn’t note how much cheaper.
Has anyone asked your Plan’s contractors if their Rep. removed the old fire extinguishers, and why they’re quoting to replace those as opposed to testing, refilling, and re-certifying the old ones? They may be doing you a favour, but in any case your Owners Corporation doesn’t have to purchase the new extinguishers from its inspecting/testing contractor; shop around!
Can’t explain the shortened hoses on the Reels, unless of course someone wants to (deeply) inhale the wacky stuff from a mega-hose
.Re Post #4 – As for the implications of the (NSW) Workplace Health and Safety Act, audits and associated activities don’t (yet) apply to Strata Plans that are entirely residential, so whilst that doesn’t mean that Executive Committees of such Plans shouldn’t keep an eagle-eye on possible risks on its Common Property, there’s no opportunity for Strata Managers and Contractors to “scam and rort” unless the Owners Corporation allows them to.
PS – Just seached for an earlier invoice. A 4.5kG dry chemical extinguisher cost $218 to remove / pressure test / re-install in 2007 and a new one of the same capacity / type cost $168 in 2008. Whale 16/11