Hi,
It is a common occurrence that document search fails to find some (or quite often many) documents.
NSW strata laws are weak and unenforceable.
We know of many horror stories of documents being “unavailable”, lost, or simply hidden from owners and potential investors.
Take a look at these public news (search for phrase “body-corporate-services-and-the-strata-scheme-from-hell”).
We have more bad news.
1) Customer can try to force access through paid document search, which will not help much.
2) Typically, customer then initiates mediation case through NSW Fair Trading. Laws allows strata manager and committee members to decline mediation, so it is a waste of customer’s time.
There were 2909 mediation applications received by NSW Fair Trading in 2022, compared with 1994 in 2018.
The most common issues for mediation related to repairs and maintenance of common property and breaches of by-laws, a NSW Fair Trading spokesperson said.
Of 2909 mediation applications, just 963 resulted in mediation, while 835 were dropped, with the respondent refusing to participate; the remaining 616 applications were either resolved before mediation or withdrawn (search for SMH news article with phrase “the-extra-obstacle-for-owners-clashing-with-body-corporates-over-building-defects”).
3) Then, customer goes to NCAT.
We have direct evidence from multiple CTTT and NCAT cases where they did not help, or did not want to help.
In one case, an owner hired highly skilful Criminal & Civil Solicitor to obtain access to already paid files. Solicitor failed. And when the case went to NCAT, the Tribunal ignored it, even when the strata manager and committee members admitted it:
This owner (name redacted) has undertaken repeated inspections of the records of the owners corporation. The representatives of the owners corporation consider that all available records of the owners corporation were made available to them during those inspections as a result of which if they do not have any records that they desires that is because those records are likely not available.
Equally importantly, what is the purpose of them pressing for the records to be produced to him?
In the circumstances, the representatives of the owners corporation do not consider that there is any merit in their request for those records to be provided to them and they are not prepared to agree to the request.
Can any reasonable person find any valid justification for the Tribunal to ignore this evidence?
Even worse, if a customer (Applicant) looses the case and the Respondent (strata manager and committee members) uses solicitor/lawyer for their defence, the customer then often pays legal costs for the other party.
So, what is the real option without high costs. Become a member of the committee or befriend somebody on the committee who can help…