#38469
Lady Penelope
Strataguru

    In my opinion (1) the false fire alarm invoice from cooking should not be passed on to the Lot owner unless there is a “Recovery of cost of false alarm” by-law.

    (2) the Lot owner can be invoiced for the trades person’s activities in triggering the false fire alarm even if there is no “False alarm” by-law as the Lot owner should probably have an approved by-law covering the renovation which would  compensate the OC for any damage to the common property.

    It would also be advisable to provide advice to Lot owners as to how they can reduce their exposure to false call outs, particularly when a renovation is taking place.  Perhaps brochures such as this can be displayed in a prominent place in the building and/or provided to all Lot owners: https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/gallery/files/pdf/business/Unwanted%20alarms%20brochure.pdf

    False fire alarms can be caused by some alarms being overly sensitive, some are the incorrect type, some are located in inappropriate locations e.g. too close to the cooking areas, some may not be of sufficient design to allow the delineation of cooking by-product versus fire smoke, and some are poorly maintained.  It would be wise to have these issues investigated by a competent authority.

    While a strata scheme that has a “Recovery of false fire alarm” by-law in place may issue a “False alarm” invoice to a Lot owner this invoice can always be disputed by an Lot owner if the Lot owner believes it to be unreasonably applied.

    In general, if an owner disputes a charge, they should pay the disputed amount (to preserve their voting rights and avoid the imposition of overdue charges and debt recovery costs) and then they can challenge the amount first with the owner’s corporation and then through NCAT if necessary.

    Apparently only 1.3% of call outs are for real fires, with the remainder being false alarms.