It’s not often that you would claim words of true wisdom are coming out of Canberra but, hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Actually, that’s not fair. The ACT finally got on board the strata train this year, at least in terms of legislation. Previously, strata disputes had to go to the district court for resolution. Now there’s a body called the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT) which will adjudicate on unresolved tiffs and general turmoil.
Provided they don’t tie themselves up in the bureaucratic knots that have become a hallmark of our Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal, that would have to be a good thing.
And it gets better. The Guide to Unit Titles Dispute Resolution, one of the documents published to explain the changes, begins its section on disputes with a very sound piece of advice that could and should apply here in NSW: “Let it go.”
In a state where everybody seems to either be fighting for their so-called rights, suing each other over real or imagined slights, or campaigning for something so trivial that no one can remember what it was in the first place, that seems like a damn fine idea.
“You don’t have to get involved in every problem that occurs within your units plan,” says the ACT leaflet. “Sometimes you can ignore things and decide to take no further action. This is a sensible approach if you have reason to believe that an issue was a one-off event and is unlikely to recur.”
With the kind of breezy pragmatism that has lawyers reaching for their smelling salts, it continues, “You can also refuse to be drawn into a dispute.”
Wow! It’s that radical idea that you can see something wrong in your building and just shrug it off rather than blasting off angry emails demanding that someone be fined, fired, strung up or thrown out, that impresses.
“Live and let live,” is a concept almost entirely alien to strata in NSW but it should be carved above every doorway, etched on every lift mirror and be a mandatory oath of residency that every owner and tenant has to take.
Of course I and 90 percent of the strata lawyers in this city would then be out of business.