› Flat Chat Strata Forum › By-laws and outlaws › The committee as strata-cop › By-law persecution › Current Page
@scotlandx said:
The short answer is no, an adjudicator does not have jurisdiction to grant declaratory relief. They can make orders to settle a dispute or complaint, but that isn’t declaratory. Re the notice to comply, what by-law did they say was being breached? Was it in relation to your communications, because I can’t think of a by-law that relates to that.
Scotty has makes two very good points here – and the second one reveal a miconception about Notices To Comply.
An NTC is not a fine, it simply states that the Owners Corp (as represented by the EC or the strata manager) believes you have breached a by-law by your action and warns you that if you continue to breach the by-law, then you may be subject to further action and a possible fine. It has to state the by-law that it believes you have breached.
Thus, as the CTTT adjudicaor said, if you don’t believe you have breached this by-law the easiest way to deal with this is to ignore the NTC and let the Owners Corp make the running on proving their case. You don’t have to prove them wrong until that happens. If you feel the need to respond, then you can send them a letter saying that you don’t feel you have breached the by-law and, consequently, you will not be changing your behaviour.
Like Scotty, I am curious to know what the by-law was that they claimed you had breached. There is no constitutional right to freedom of speech in Australia but I’ve never heard of any by-law that prevents owners from communicating with the EC or other owners.
Let’s see a copy of the by-law that you are supposed to have breached – to satisfy our curiosity, if nothing else.