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If the majority of owners in your scheme want the timber fence replaced with a similar fence, the simplest thing to do would be to inform the neighbours that you will be replacing the fence and then charging them for half the cost (for which they are liable under the Dividing Fences Act).
If that doesn’t galvanise them, then so be it – they want you to do all the hard work for them but they want they reward.
I think the Dividing Fences Act states that in a situation like this, the body that wants the more expensive option on a shared improvement has to pay the difference. Maybe that will change their attitude.
Otherwise, I suggest you commence mediation through Fair Trading with the adjoining scheme with the stated intention of seeking orders at NCAT under section 233 (below) to require them to share the cost of the fence.
Strictly speaking, this dispute falls under the Dividing Fences Act which might render it invalid under 233 (1)(b) but perhaps if you made the claim not that they were refusing to pay their share, but that they were refusing to negotiate properly, it might get you to NCAT and then get an order.
Either way, you can’t let their reluctance to pay for representation prevent this moving forward. NCAT is supposedly a free service that anyone can use with or without a strata manager’s or lawyer’s advice (although you would be nuts to go without some professional support).
So have a word and tell them that doing nothing is not an option (despite my most to the contrary today) and they can either step up or be forced to jump.
233 ORDER FOR SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTE BETWEEN STRATA SCHEMES
(1) The Tribunal may, on application by an owners corporation for a strata scheme, make an order to settle a dispute between that strata scheme and another strata scheme if:
(a) the strata schemes are contiguous or the dispute relates to a lease of land, or other arrangement relating to property, of one of the schemes, and
(b) the matter in dispute is not regulated by or under any other Act.
(2) In this section, a strata scheme is
“contiguous” with another strata scheme even if it is divided by, or separated from the other scheme by, a natural feature (such as a watercourse), a railway, a road, a public reserve or a drainage reserve.