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The SA community titles by-law breaches process can lead to action at the magistrates court so it would be good to establish an agreed process. Also, unusually in Australian strata, the body corproate or management committee can issue fines for alleged offences.
So this is how I would handle it.
Hold a general meeting at which you firstly (if you haven’t already done so), establish a sliding scale for by-law breach penalties. This could be,say, $200 for the first offence, $350 for repeat offences and the maximum $500 for three-peats.
Then hold a management committee meeting to issue notices of “alleged” breaches of by-laws, detailing what the breach is and what the expected remedy is. I think you might need to be very precise here as this could end up in court.
The owner has 60 days to mend their ways or pay the fine. See this Legal Services Commission of SA fact sheet for more information.
At this point, if they haven’t fixed the problem, you could either hit them with another fine or escalate this to your local magistrates court. See this fact sheet where there is pro forma wording of the breach notice you would need to use, plus a link to the official notice.
At court you can ask for orders compelling the owners to do the work (which is why you need to be specific in the breach notice.) FYI: The owners can also take the scheme to court to have the breach notices overturned.
But before you did any of that, I would issue a notice to all owners that the management committee is about to get serious about maintenance of lots.
Something like:
We are becoming increasingly concerned by the deterioration of the physical condition and appearance of some lots in this scheme which we feel not only undermines the amenity and value of all our properties but is also in breach of our by-laws, namely (XXX).
We want to allow all owners the opportunity to bring their lots up to an acceptable level and will be issuing notices of work that we feel needs to be done to individual lots.
With that in mind, we will ask affected owners to present a plan of necessary works to the committee for approval withing 30 days.
Where appropriate, we will endeavour to coordinate tradespeople to undertake the work on different lots at the same time with a view to reducing costs to individual owners.
However, if owners don’t present an acceptable work plan, with quotes from professional trades attached, within the designated period, we will issue an an “alleged breach” notice and and a $200 fine for breaches of by-law (XXX).
This will be done under the terms of Section 101 of the Community Titles Act which says (in part):
101—Power to enforce duties of maintenance and repair etc
(1) A community corporation may, by notice in writing to the owner of a lot, require the owner—
(a) to carry out specified work in pursuance of a duty of maintenance or repair imposed on the owner by this Act or the by-laws;
(b) to carry out specified work to remedy—
(i) a breach of this Act or the by-laws by the owner or a former owner or an occupier or former occupier of the lot; or
(ii) a situation that is likely to result in a breach of this Act or the by-laws;If the lot owner fails to remedy the breach, we will escalate the case to the Magistrates Court seeking orders compelling the owner to undertake the work. If need be, we will also seek legal cost in any cases we pursue in this way.
We apologise if this seems heavy-handed, but the deterioration is significant and serious in some cases and you are entitled to know that there may be consequences for failure to abide by your by-laws.
And it’s at this point, especially if there are a large number of lots needing repair, that I feel your committee should first speak to a strata lawyer experienced in the vagaries of SA community title laws.