We’re going to take a look back at a question from a couple of weeks, regarding how owners can check their committee members have done the mandatory training.
We’re having another look partly because it triggered a few comments but also because we have come into a bit more information about why the enforcement, if you can call it that, is so limp-wristed.
To refresh your memory, strata committee members will, from October 1, be required to undertake basic online training. We don’t know exactly what form the training will take but it will last about an hour and at the end of it they will get a Certificate of Completion.
It will then be up to the strata committee secretary to ask to see the certificate and if it can’t be produced, tell the committee member that they are no longer on the committee.
This will not apply to committee members who are on their committee when the scheme starts, but will apply to any committee members elected or re-elected thereafter.
And before we go any further, we are in favour of the compulsory training. In fact, we wish there was more compulsiona dnless suggestion.
Because, what will NOT happen is that committee members will be pursued for not taking the training. Likewise, secretaries will not be punished for not checking that committee members have their Certificates of Completion.
Also, decisions made by the committee will still stand, even if some of its members should have been bounced, regardless of whether or not their votes decided contentious issues.
So, you may ask, what’s the point? Why is this being introduced when there is no real comeback for failing to comply? Can anyone sense an impending wave of passive resistance heading our way? Do nothing and nothing will happen?
The simple answer is that the legislation that would enable Fair Trading to enforce these rules hasn’t passed the Upper House yet.
A little bird with detailed knowledge of the workings of Fair Trading and the NSW Parliament, tells me that the Ministry went ahead with the training plan in the hope that the Upper House would have passed the laws by the time they were required.
Most politicians agree on the strata law reforms, apparently, but some Upper House members are holding out until issues that have nothing to do with strata can be agreed in their favour.
So, in a nutshell, the regulations behind the quasi-compulsory training had to be watered down in case we get to October 1 and there is no law in place to enforce them. You can comment on the whole messy business or read the original post and replies HERE.
Elsewhere in the Forum
- Why won’t strata insurance pay the whole cost of damages in a personal injury claim. That’s HERE.
- I thought balconies were part of common property. How come mine isn’t? That’s HERE.
- What can we do about an owner stacking overflowing boxes in their car space? That’s HERE.
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Forum: Why committee training lacks bite, insurance won’t pay injury claim in full, boxes stacked in parking space, aren’t all balconies common property?
[See the full original blog post at: Forum: Why ‘compulsory’ training is anything but To comment on the post, click on reply here.]
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