Sorry for the late reply:
1. Fair Trading is right. A committee member cannot charge for answering an owner’s question or ignore communication of an urgent nature that impacts on the building, which is the committee’s responsibility.
What committee members often do is ignore emails or phone calls. Or take their time replying. No laws against that I understand.
2. In my experience, often – but not always – Strata Managers’ behaviour is dictated by committees. The committee may tell an agent to ignore or not act on emails. Thie may be because the committee is spiteful or just don’t want to do any work. Managers want to keep their jobs so will do as their paymaster tells them.
That said, your job is to show that you notified the OC via the manager about something and nothing was done. I suggest you copy any email you send to a manager also to a committee member, that way both are informed and if nothing is done, your hand is strengthened when it comes to filing a complaint with NCAT. After all, both the manager and the committee knew of a problem and chose to ignore it making them very possibly liable for any consequential damage or loss you suffer as a result from their lethargy.
3. When you get the quotes and apply to NCAT ensure your “renewal of proceedings” paperwork, which of course will cost an application fee, is limited to WORK ORDERS. You cannot renew proceedings for a non WORK ORDER matter. Get quotes also for ALL the additional damage you have seen eg outside the front door, ceiling carpet etc
4. In your renewal paperwork you must mention how the water problem which has been ignored by the OC and manager has got worse.
Describe the new situation: the stains, smell and leaks near your front door; the inattention to the concrete slab that necessitated carpet replacement and expert advice that was ignored.
The above indicate continued dereliction of duty by the committee to repair and maintain common property under s. 106 of the SSMA.Throw in that you believe the committee is acting in bad faith and hence breaching s. 260, SSMA
http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ssma2015242/s260.html
As these issues are intimately related to the NCAT order ignored by the OC, I think it reasonable that you add them to the renewal application where you’ll seek orders for the repair and replacement of whatever is damaged.
If the issues were unrelated, you may be asked by NCAT to go first to Strata Mediation where you and the OC are to discuss the issues with a view to resolving them, under the guidance of an impartial mediator.
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Here is some information on Strata Mediation:
Go to the Fair Trading website and lodge online a request for Strata Mediation on this issue. The cost to you is zero but often NCAT will require a customer to have attempted to mediate on the matter before going to NCAT.
Go to
At the above link scroll to MEDIATION
and look for COMPLETE THE APPLICATION
click on that link, fill in the form and Fair Trading will contact you in about 10 days (who knows, maybe sooner)
At Mediation the other side may not attend mediation or they may not agree to anything or they may agree to fixing the problems and then not follow through. These are all possibilities. Once mediation is over (if they don’t attend then it’s over as soon as it starts), the Mediator will email you a letter confirming what took place at mediation. That letter is all you need to go to NCAT.
For more information on this matter call Fair Trading on 13 32 20
I hope the above helps. Appologies for not replying sooner.