› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Parking Peeves › Storage cabinets: Strata Committee conflict › Current Page
The committee … agreed to obtain legal advice at our expense, without our knowledge.
Is that at the collective expense of all owners (which is fine) or billing it back to you without your permission, which they can’t do?
Not being able to store possessions in our storage area reduces our enjoyment of our living space and ultimately reduces the value of our property …
So the by-laws or strata plan say you can use the car spaces for storage but the committee doesn’t allow secure storage? They are going to have trouble making that stick at NCAT.
… similarly for 9 other properties, who may still not have been fully informed, despite our suggestion.
So ask for the other owners’ email addresses and tell them what’s going on. But couch it in terms of there being confusion and inadequate advice from the fire safety people. Don’t get into a postion where you are asking owners to support you against individuals.
The managing agent has forwarded communications but has not provided support, shared an opinion, provided advice or mediation.
Those really aren’t the strata manager’s jobs and they will usually avoid getting in the middle of conflicts where personalities may be part of the issue (as you seem to suggest here). They work for the owners but their first point of contact is the committee, the committee is, in turn, answerable to the owners corp (all owners). If you want mediation, raise an action at Fair Trading under section 232 (resolution of disputes). The compulsory mediation prior to an NCAT action is free.
At this stage, the committee has agreed to approach an A1 accredited certifier to provide certainty for the entire building. Should that really be necessary?
That actually sounds like a reasonable solution, provided the certifier isn’t simply going to jutify their position, rather than give a definitive and independent opinion.
Even if they do the former, you can go back to the committee and tell them that it will be up to them to define what CAN be used as storage (assuming you can get the 25 percent of votes required to block a change to the by-laws).