› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Strata Committees › Can/should an OC be involved in neighbourhood issues? › Current Page
@Austman said:
Thanks Sir Humphrey. That’s the sort of reference I’m looking for. I’m a strata owner in the ACT as well. But just above that, in the Unit Titles (Management) Act 2011, is a list of committee functions. It’s pretty clear to me that there are considerable limitations. And Part 3 Functions of owners corporations lists exactly what an OC’s functions are that committee can exercise. Again they are quite limited.
Yes, the ACT’s UTM Act Part 3, s.16(1) lists the functions of the OC as follows:
An owners corporation for a units plan has the following functions:
(a) the enforcement of its rules;
(b) the control, management and administration of the common property;
(c) any other function given to the corporation under this Act or another territory law.
And then Part 3 and elsewhere in the Act provides more detail. I would argue that s.16(1)(c) covers comment on development proposals in the neighbourhood. There will be other territory law to do with development proposals and consultation with anyone with an interest in nearby property. The OC is a (legal) ‘person’* with an interest in nearby development and entitled to comment. Even beyond any formal development consultation process, there would be ordinary legal rights to free speech which can be exercised by the OC as much as anyone else.
Obviously, the OC should refrain from expressing an opinion on some matter not even remotely linked to the management, use or enjoyment of its property. On the other hand, I think it should comment if, for example, there is a proposal that would result in a direct effect such as extra noise or shading of the property or an indirect effect such as a loss of amenity to the owners through redevelopment of nearby open space or other local facilities enjoyed by the owners.
*s.8 and 9 provide the OC with the characteristics of a ‘legal personality’. In a recent matter at the ACT Magistrates Court, the magistrate strongly hinted to me that I needed to amend our application (I am not a lawyer but I was representing our EC). We were asking for an enforcement order that would enable the EC to enforce a Tribunal order. A unit owner had been ordered by the Tribunal to remove an unapproved structure on their unit by a certain date but had not done so. Now we wanted authority for the EC to enter the unit and remove the structure. ACT Magistrates Court rule 2442 said the Court could appoint a ‘person’ to do something that another person had been ordered to do but failed to do. What we needed to do was establish who was the legal personality to whom the rule could be applied. From the UTM Act the OC was a ‘person’ that could be authorised ‘to do a thing’, the EC was not a ‘person’. The order would authorise the OC to do that which the unit owner had been ordered to do although it followed that it would be the EC that could exercise that function given by the court order. It further followed from default rule 10, which our OC had adopted, that the EC could exercise that function by appointing a representative (IE an appropriate tradesperson) to do the actual removal of the unapproved structure and making good.