Many strata owners complain that their neighbours have too much control over their lives … then you get someone who feels there’s way too little.
QUESTION: My owners corporation is non-existent. In our little group of eight townhouses, everybody just does what they want. One owner has converted their garage into a playroom for their kids and now parks their cars on common property. Another ripped out an air con unit and filled the space with cement blocks. Social Work seem to rent another unit judging by the steady stream of short-term residents in “reduced circumstances”.
Meanwhile the other owners refuse to get involved and they won’t have a strata manager because it’s “too expensive”. They also won’t put money into a sinking fund because they don’t see the point in paying for future repairs that someone else might benefit from.
Is this legal and is there anything I can do about it? – Rula, Blacktown
ANSWER: It sounds like you’d have a very good case to take to the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal to ask for a strata manager to be put in charge of the scheme, for the simple reason that it is not being run in accordance with the Act. Changes made to common property have to be approved by 75 percent of owners. You have to have a sinking fund plan and common property has to be maintained. That’s the law.
Things like parking and other by-law breaches should be policed by your Executive Committee (if you have one) but failing that they can be raised at Fair Trading by individual owners.
Your neighbours may think they can muddle along and let things drift but sooner or later someone is going to want to sell and there will be no documentation to show what’s been approved and what hasn’t. Savvy buyers would stay well clear.
There are plenty of schemes that don’t have Strata Managers but have active committee members, and vice versa.
Having neither is just storing up problems that will have to be addressed all at once when somebody realises their home or investment is being devalued by this she’ll-be-right attitude.
Email mail@flatchat.com.au with your queries.