As an owner who has had to tolerate the bullying of the developer ( and still does) of our 14 unit Strata plan in NSW you have my sincere sympathy. Even though in the SSMA 2015 it implies that the initial period requires the developer to be the Chair, Secretary and Treasurer of the Owners Corporation, our developer did not operate in compliance with the Act.
By the time we had the first AGM some years after we had moved in , he had kept all our levies, no bank account for the Strata Scheme existed and our new committee started the year with no money at all. We are still trying to catch up and have just had our 2nd AGM.
The developer is still bullying the other owners with almost weekly threats of taking us to court for anything and everything and after all this time we still cannot get our By Laws passed because he holds more than 25% of the lot entitlements and so votes against the special resolution that is required.
Hence we have only the 8 By Laws that he registered with the Strata Plan and these all favour his apartment. He still holds 39% of the lot entitlements and will do until he has sold more units.
He has already advised that he will keep the units that will give him 27% of the lot entitlements so that we will never be able to get our By laws passed. So after all that, I absolutely agree with Jimmy, get the lawyer ( we couldn’t afford one) and get your developer sorted as soon as you can. They can make your life a misery and unfortunately if they are bullies they even frighten the Strata managers.
If we had our time over again we would have gone to NCAT at the beginning to get a Strata Manager appointed by the Tribunal due to the OC being “ dysfunctional “ .