… from what I can gather from Jimmy’s and others’ responses, only the NCAT or a court can decide responsibility for legal costs, in effect rendering the bylaw invalid.
I’m not a lawyer so it’s only my personal opinion that the by-law would be invalid and the only way you would find out for sure if that was true would be to test it at NCAT.
In any case, letting owners know, by whatever means, that all costs will be pursued for vexatious, mischievous and baseless claims that were bound to fail anyway, should be enough to deter serial strata pests and hobby litigants, without putting off genuine complainants.
I get the amout of distress that serial pests can cause to a community but I don’t think the answer is a bogus by-law. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
And I’m also guessing that this by-law may be there, initially at least, to deter pests rather than bona fide complaints, and if the latter is the result, the serial pests should take a good long look at how much trouble they are causing others with their petty vendettas.