I am pretty sure many of these will be buildings where defects were not pursued and repairs were not undertaken while the owners were told that the main objective was to keep fees down.
Considering I’ve actually owned an apartment in such a building in VIC since it was newly built, I perhaps have some actual knowledge on the matter better than most.
Sure, I’ve seen that once the cladding has been removed, other issues under the cladding might have been exposed. I doubt however that anyone in the OC or the OC committee knew about those issues. I certainly know we didn’t in our building of 200 lots.
For sure there are national building standards issues. The flammable cladding issue is an big example of that. But the warranty protection for ALL new builds, not just stratas – houses as well, has been totally awful.
When my stratas in VIC have contemplated legal action on building warranty issues, there’s never been a campaign to “keep fees low”. There’s been warnings that such actions can be hugely expensive. With some typical costings supplied. Costs that might not be recovered at VCAT.
It’s only recently that Victorian strata committees didn’t require a special resolution to initiate legal action.
That’s not really correct either. It’s not that the strata committees (or the OC) couldn’t take legal action. It was where that legal action could be undertaken without a Special Resolution. They were pretty much limited to VCAT without the Special Resolution. Now they can take matters to certain courts. And be awarded costs if they win. And be awarded costs against them if they lose of course!
For an OC, even going to VCAT can be expensive. An OC almost 100% of the time needs to be legally represented. That’s costly. And it needs to be considered.
meeting in “secret” – I don’t know how else to describe people meeting where outsiders can’t observe them – and then refusing to share their deliberations with other owners.
And that’s not quite right either. Minutes of committee meetings must be published. Even email decisions have an email record. They all form part of the OC records.
I’ll be resigning from my committee chair positions of 40 years of service if committee day-to-day decisions all need such formality. Where on earth would anyone get the time to do it all?
Major committee decisions are another matter. But a committee can be limited by the OC on how major those decisions can be. Committees can get booted every 12 months. Owners can run for the committee. It’s all pretty democratic but like with any democracy, groups of like minded individuals (owners in an OC) can sometimes dominate. Democracy in action.
I agree that in VIC, formal committee meeting minutes for major decisions should be sent out to all owners.
I do that.
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