Mr Strata said:
Why should all owners contribute towards one persons fight with a neighbor that they find to be too noisy?
The process for an individual to take an issue to Fair Trading is the same as an owners corporation taking it to there. Why have a battle with the EC to enforce the by-laws instead of getting on and having your issue addressed? Seems a bit futile to encourage this approach
OK, there are some issues that are truly between neighbours – like the piano playing example – but others where the EC needs to take a stand to show what kind of community they are in.
Is a noisy, aggressive and anti-social neighbour who only disturbs one resident a case for letting that person handle it on their own? And rogue parking – if only one resident is affected, do the others just turn their backs and say 'not my problem'.
And what if that person is unable to understand the processes or is too scared to do anything about their problem?
The process is not “exactly the same”, Mr Strata, and well you know it. An EC has the benefit of experience, professional advice and collective decision making. Most significantly, their handling of a case gives a sense that the community supports the owner who is suffering.
Conversely, an owner acting alone can too easily be dismissed as just another strata whinger who should be living in a house and the CTTT adjudicators can't help asking themselves why the EC isn't going in to bat for them.
And that's the root of this problem. The strata industry is focused on getting as many people into as small a space as possible and to hell with the consequences. Unless we start thinking about community responsibilities rather than personal “rights” all we're doing is building the slums of the future.
Community standards are not established by rules but by what the community does when those rules are breached. If you tell residents they are on their own, don't expect them to care too much about the buildings they live in and the people they live with.