› Flat Chat Strata Forum › By-laws and outlaws › Perplexed by pergolas › Current Page
@Whale said:
Jimmy T. may want to untangle the mess that you’ve created (because I can’t), but on the subject of an Owners Corporation’s (O/C) personal property…..
Yes, I am confused too. It seems to me that we have a situation where some units have pergolas and some don’t. Some of the existing pergolas are common property and some aren’t, although all of them have been maintained as if they were common property.
Now the owners corp has passed a special resolution absorbing the non common property pergolas into the common property. Why? Perhaps it’s just to stop squabbling.
Certainly the people who don’t have pergolas have a right to feel aggrieved if they are just legitimising costs that shouldn’t be charged to the OC. And that is the nub of the argument – not whether or not pergolas are personal property.
If the existing common property pergolas are not accruing additional levies through higher Unit Entitlements the Non-Pergola (NP) owners are being cheated. The fact that non common property pergolas were being maintained means everyone else was being cheated.
The simple answer is to seek dispute resolution through NCAT (Section 138) whereby everyone who has a pergola has to pay for its upkeep one way or another and those who don’t have one don’t have to pay. This might however result in a recalculation of Unit Entitlements and that’s another can of very wriggly worms.