› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Pets: Furry friends … or fiends? › Pet Approval › Current Page
My understanding is that pre-1996 schemes come under the standard model by-laws EXCEPT where a special by-law has been created, which would seem to be the case in your scheme.
Your best bet is to canvass all the other owners to have your by-laws updated (something the government wants us all to do anyway) and to include the pet by-laws that allow pets with permission that must not be reasonably refused.
This is not up to the Executive Committee (although they can make it harder to do). You need to get enough signatures to call an Extraordinary General meeting (25 percent of owners) and then persuade 75 percent of the owners voting at the general meeting to adopt the new by-law.
Bear in mind that the EC members will have zero interest in doing anything that may mean more work for them with no obvious benefit.
You could start your campaign by putting a motion to the EC with accompanying material about the benefits of pets and the fact that apartments that ban pets can suffer a 10-15 percent reduction in value. There is a stack of material around that shows the social, financial and personal health benefits of pet ownership.
No one that I know has been evicted for pet ownership but they have been driven out. The way it works is that you get a Notice to Comply, but you don’t. The EC goes to the tribunal and asks for a fine, (probably about $200). You pay it. They go through the process again, but this time they ask for orders and that’s when you have some hard decisions to make. The fines for ignoring NCAT orders can be hefty and they get higher every time you ignore them.
Needless to say, this can get expensive and stressful (for both sides) but it does buy you some time for the new laws to come in and, for instance, for proxy farming to be eradicated, improving your chances of getting a majority on your side.
However, a much better tactic for all concerned is to go to the EC and ask if they will allow you to organise an EGM at your expense (assuming your AGM isn’t any time soon), so that owners can discuss the appropriateness of this 1995 by-law and whether or not they want to change it.
If the EC refuses, start your own campaign by appealing directly to other owners and you can demand an EGM by getting the sgnatures of 25 percent of owners.
It’s worth noting that I got into this whole strata thing because we were told that our off-the-plan apartment would be pet-friendly but the autocratic chairman and his committee of cronies decided to ban pets.
What that did was to unite pet owners who might never have spoken to each other and not only did we get our pets in, they pet owners took over running the building and uncovered all sorts of dodgy deals as well as out-and-out corruption.
So talk to the committee about raising the issue, don’t allow yourself to be fobbed off, campaign constructively and positively, be ready for some serious resistance and be prepared to look for somewhere else to live if the majority of people in the block still don’t want pets.