› Flat Chat Strata Forum › By-laws and outlaws › Problem tenants › Current Page
OK, the first thing to remember is that tenants are subject to exactly the same laws and by-laws as any other resident, including owners. So get a copy of your by-laws and have a look at which ones you think they are breaching. Then go to an Executive Committee meeting and ask them to issue a Notice To Comply. You can download a Notice To Comply for here: https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/pdfs/About_us/Forms/Notice_to_comply.pdf.
The secretary of the Executive Committee can then sent the NTC or ask your strata manager to do so if they are worried about confrontations with the tenants. NB: You can only send one NTC per by-law breach and you have to specify the by-law that’s been broken. On the other hand, if they have broken several by-laws, they can get several NTCs and, potentially, several fines.
The NTC is effectively a final warning (although there doesn’t have to be any previous warning). If the tenants continue to breach the by-laws you take them to CTTT where the fine(s) can be imposed. Usually the threat of fines is enough to make most rogue tenants either behave or move out.
In a situation like yours, where the tenants have already ignored verbal requests to modify their behaviour, I would go straight to the NTC option. It’s not a fine, remember, it’s just a final warning but they ignore it at their peril.
Meanwhile, if they show no signs of changing their behaviour, gather as much evidence as you can including properly notarised statutory declarations and photographs (even recordings of the cat’s cries) so that when you take them to the CTTT the complaint will stick, the fines will be imposed and the threat of further fines will be hanging over them.
Hope this helps … if anyone has any other thoughts, please hop in and tell us what you think.