There’s a very good example in this week’s Forum of why some training for strata committee members – and ordinary owners too – would be a good thing.
A couple of years ago a Flatchatter’s strata neighbours received permission from the committee to turn an ugly and neglected piece of unsused common property into a community garden.
They paid for the seed, plants and soil themselves and set about turning an unloved patch of land into something useful and attractive.
Recently, a disgruntled resident has said that, since the approval wasn’t given by the owners’ corporation at an AGM, rather than by the committee, the garden should be scrapped.
It’s beyond me why anyone would want to remove something that enhances the look of the property and gives residents simple pleasures, a sense of community and a few fresh veggies.
Are they obsessively anti vegetable or did they not get their fair share of last season’s lettuce? Is the happy chatter of gardeners an assault on their ears? Do they have their eye on the land for their own purposes?
Whatever the reason, their non-legal logic for scrapping the garden sounds like blatant bush-lawyering.
For a start, the committee is there to make decisions on behalf the owners corporation about the management of common property. Secondly, the gardeners paid for the basics out of their own pockets so there was no expense involved.
Now, if there had been a major expenditure involved or if the piece of land had been utilised by the owners corporation for a completely different purpose, then it should have gone to a general meeting.
But this is all bluster and BS. Apart from anything else, if the majority of owners didn’t want the garden, they could have over-ridden the committee’s agreement at the next general meeting.
Perhaps if the committee had enjoyed a modicum of strata education, they could have told the complainer to get back in their box – and told them where they could find out what the law really says. You can dig into it a bit more HERE.
Elsewhere in the forum
- Whatever happened to the investigation into Netstrata and the SCA? That’s HERE.
- Are a strata manager or committee obliged to tell all owners that they have been the subject of a complaint to the tribunal? That’s HERE.
- UPDATE: Owner threatened with paying costs if they take the OC to a tribunal. That’s HERE.
- UPDATE: Who paints the ceiling after damage caused by a common property leak? That’s HERE.
- UPDATE: Can we split major works payments between special levies and a strata loan? That’s HERE.
How to ask and answer questions
Anyone can read our posts at any time, but you have to be registered to ask or answer questions. However, there are so many easy ways you can search, access, ask questions and reply to others’ queries once you have registered using the green “register and sign in …” box on this page.
The best way may be to click on “Forum: Your Qs & A’s” on the top menu bar or on the drop-down menu (three lines) on the screen on phones and tablets, under the Strata Choice ad. Then click on the topic title that interests you, and off you go.
Alternatively, you can click on the new “Latest Qs and As” Forum button on the top right of a computer screen or the link on the “hamburger” menu on a phone.
Or look at the list of “Your latest questions and answers” under the ads on the right of the page on a computer screen. Or at the bottom, after the ads and stories, on a tablet or phone.
finally, you can go “old school” and go to the Forum Home Page and work your way through the topics there.
Whichever route you take to get there, the best way to keep up to speed with what’s happening is to register (if you haven’t already done so), then login and subscribe for free to the topics that interest you most.
That way you’ll get an alert whenever the discussion moves forward, and you can also chip in with your own comments and questions. Have a look HERE at our instant guide to getting online.
› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Current Page
Tagged: AGM, committee, decisions, forum, levies, loans, NCAT, Netstrata, Strata
Anti-garden complaint, what happened to the Netstrata inquiry, informing owners about NCAT actions, combining strata loans and special levies.
[See the full post at: Forum: Growing pains for a strata garden]
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Current Page
› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Current Page