Hi Dech,
There is nothing in the Strata Act that specifically says a person or party has 12 months to have a complaint adjudicated.
On the back of the older application for adjudication it says a person has 12 months after mediation to apply for adjudication. This no longer appears on the newer adjudication form and it does not appear anywhere in the Act but it is a time-frame Consumer Trader and Tenancy Tribunal (CTTT) apply to adjudication applications after mediation. That may or may not be the 12 months being referred to.
That you are getting conflicting info from Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is no surprise. I often ring a few times on the same matter just to check that different operators give consistent information; generally they do not. These people are far from experts and in some cases OFT staff could benefit from spending some time reading forums like this one. You cannot rely on what OFT tell you.
Mediation and potentially then ending up spending another $74 on adjudication.
I have done this at a $5 rate on numerous occasions and done it relating to everything from no detailed agenda to overspending a $16k budget by 50% and running up significant deficits. The list of breaches in my SP is extensive; meetings without a quorum, visitors Chairing EC meetings, failure to supply valid audits, not calculate interest properly, bogus elections, ultra vires policies, selective by-law enforcement, it goes on and on — but this is not about the failures of my SP.
Every time I go to CTTT the CTTT find a way to dismiss the applications; the only thing ever acknowledged as possibly being serious was a failure to give adequate notice for an AGM but because there was a decent turn out on the day (says the adjudicator) that did not result in any action from the adjudicator.
CTTT are not the strata police. What is in the Strata Act is not a set of rules that will be enforced. The Act is more like a guide that doesn't need to be followed as long as nothing too serious is happening as a consequence of the disregard.
CTTT deal in remedy to what they perceive are serious matters. Is what you seek a remedy to a serious problem or is what you seek better management practices and compliance levels?
CTTT, potentially, could address a serious problem appropriately but consistency is not their forte. If you make an application regarding matters of the Act not being followed that really do not have any seriously detremental effect then CTTT will most likely find a way not to be seen as the strata police.
The outcome of any involvement with CTTT also depends on what is in the respondents submission. I have found that bogus people hiding under the umbrella of the EC seem not to have to prove their assertions because there is some underlying credibility to what they say because they are “the management”.
Looking at the brief detail in your post i would say save your money and try not to learn too much about the requirements of the Act because ignorance is bliss in strata and knowledge is only frustrating because the Act is mostly meaningless due to there being no genuine enforcement agency. There are very few enforced rules.