#14866
Sir Humphrey
Strataguru

    We had an issue that required some money to fix a serious safety issue. The EC (of which I was part) recognised the danger and the need to address it urgently. We decided we had no choice but to go ahead and make the necessary repairs using part of the contingency component of our sinking fund which had ample reserves. An AGM came around before work had commenced so the budget being presented included the amount that was needed. One owner had been on the EC a decade earlier when evidence of the now-dangerous damage had first become apparent. The EC at the time decided to not act due to some poor advice from the former managing agent. He advised that it was an issue between two owners but if he had consulted the unit plan he would have known this was incorrect. One of the relevant owners pointed that out at the time (in writing) but this was ignored. 

    Anyway, what had been a smaller problem in the 1990s had got a lot worse last year, quickly becoming dangerous, and come to the attention of an entirely new EC. The former EC member sent notes to all owners decrying the ignorance and inappropriate spending of the more recent EC. This EC asked a strata specialist lawyer to provide written answers to a series of questions on the matter. One was “What liabilities would the owners corporation have been exposed to if the EC had not acted promptly on first becoming aware of this issue?” The answer detailed the considerable penalties for ‘failure to comply with a safety duty-general’ and ‘negligent exposure to substantial risk of serious harm’, let alone what we might have be liable for if someone had actually been hurt or killed. It was very useful to be able to read out the lawyer’s answers to this and other questions at the AGM. Many people had come to the meeting unsure what to think. In the end only two people in the room did not vote approving the works and the budget. 

    It was ridiculous that we even had to go to legal opinions to confirm for the owners that the EC was being proper and responsible but sometimes it helps to cut through the nonsense. 

    If your EC is intransigent perhaps you could get a group of other owners to agree to chip in for a simple letter from a lawyer. The more work you do, the less the lawyer has to and do the cheaper it should be IE ask the right series of questions with all the necessary information provided.