› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Living in strata › Executive Committee Chair’s misleading advice? › Current Page
Fair Trading neither creates strata law nor enforces it. This is not Fair Trading’s role and they shouldn’t be issuing statements like that.
They can express an opinion but they often get things wrong and there are plenty of lawyers who would say your by-law is valid, especially in view of the recent WA Appeals Court and Privy council rulings.
The only real way to test the by-law is to get the committee to issue a notice to comply then apply for a fine if she does it again. If she refuses to pay the fine and challenges the by-law, the Tribunal will decide if it is valid.
The recent case in Woollahra was more about a badly written by-law than any such by-law being invalid.
As she is in dispute with the Owners Corp, it would be reasonable for the committee to declare the position of chair vacant and elect a new member of the committee to the role. It’s a simple as that.
Failing that, you can (after mediation) apply to NCAT for orders to remove her as chair or from the committee completely.
The disgraceful thing here is that the chairwoman knows the majority of owners don’t want airbnb but she doesn’t care. There are plenty of buildings with by-laws just like yours that are effectively keeping airbnb at bay.