This week’s Forum is devoted mainly to a story from a reader which illustrates how one owner can disrupt the normal workings of a strata committee, how the committee can be hijacked by self-interested owners and how their decisions can put the whole scheme in jeopardy.
It’s a tale of power struggles that saw the dysfunctional committee sidelined when the Tribunal placed it in administration, only to come back and do it all again once their enforced time in the strata “wilderness” expired.
Here’s the story with all identifications removed in line with Flat Chat’s policies on privacy.
Until 2018 the Strata Committee and Owners Corporation had been highly functional organisations with the building and its maintenance at the forefront of our priorities. In 2019 the owners corporation determined there needed to be a major refurb due to the building being more than 40 years old.
An engineer was engaged to scope the works and prepare tender documents. However, one owner – let’s call the The Challenger – disagreed with this process and then started challenging every decision by the strata manager and committee.
The Strata Manager of more than 20 years resigned and the Strata Roll was moved to a startup agency which was not a good experience. As well as the poorly performing strata manager there was orchestration of who would be on the Committee by a new owner. This owner had their own agenda and after a heated exchange on the morality of numerous decisions I resigned.
The ‘challenger’ continued to challenge the Committee and things deteriorated. The committee members then decided to orchestrate decisions on their own, regardless of the Owners Corporation and the Strata Manager.
Ultimately, the Challenger took the Owners Corporation to NCAT and it was placed in Administration. The NCAT findings were scathing about the behaviour of Strata Committee.
The compulsorily appointed Strata Managing Agent (SMA) stabilised the Owners Corporation and continued with the refurbishment project with scoping documents and preparation of contracts. The contracts for building refurbishment works were finalised and signed in the last week prior to the cessation of Administration
The Strata Committee was reconstituted with the same people as when it was placed in Administration.
After a Committee meeting in May 2024 where the finances and building risks were laid open for every owner, the other Committee members turned on me. After several months the Committee orchestrated a rollover and three members were elected and I was gone – quite happily
As part of the scoping report from the Engineers there were major works to the building which became part of the insurance policy conditions. These were presented at the Committee meeting by me.
Even though it has been deemed contrary to Section 106 of the Strata Schemes Act by NSW Fair Trading, the Strata Committee are refusing to address the fire hazard issue by trying to include it in the capital works plan, even though the costs of the works should be borne by the Strata Committee member who owns the apartment.
As background I am now in the process of challenging the decisions by the Strata Committee at NCAT, having been unsuccessful in mediation at NSW Fair Trading as I refused to allow the Strata Committee to engage a lawyer to represent them.
One significance of this story is that there is no mechanism to prevent owners who created the circumstances in which the strata committee was replaced by a compulsorily appointed strata manager, from coming back and starting all over again as soon as the appointment ends.
Maybe compulsory appointment should also come with a further ban of, say, two years on the committee members who caused the problem, to give the scheme a chance to run itself properly before the recalcitrant, backsliders and serial miscreants take over again. You can have your say HERE.
Elsewhere on the Forum
- Can the committee instruct the strata manager to make a valid payment when they refuse because there is no invoice? That’s HERE.
- How can it be that a strata manager keeps working after their contract has expired? That’s HERE.
- Are older units really a better prospect for purchasers? That’s HERE.
- UPDATE: Is it possible to take action against a committee member who breached a by-law? That’s HERE.
- UPDATE: Can townhouses who are paying more than their fair share of levies “divorce” from the apartment block part of the scheme which generates all the expenses? That’s HERE.
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