@phill74 said:
We applied to NCAT for a compulsory strata manager to be appointed, and after an initial rejection, I finally convinced NCAT to make the appointment, and a New SM was appointed around June 2016.
Depending on the terms of the compulsory appointment, you no longer have any say in the running of the building. Many of your problems will stem from that fact. this is what Fair Trading says about statutory appointments:
An Adjudicator may appoint a nominated person as a managing agent to carry out:
- all the functions of an owners corporation
- all the functions of the executive committee and/or the Chairperson, Secretary or Treasurer
- only some of those functions
… if an Adjudicator is satisfied the owners corporation is not doing its work satisfactorily, or has failed to comply with an order, failed to perform one or more of its duties or owes a judgement debt, the Adjudicator may appoint a managing agent.
The only other thing I can think of is to apply for mediation, or make an application for determination with NCAT, but reading other posts here not sure these would produce a result, and its really hard to organise from the other side of the planet.
It’s still your only option. There is no other mechanism for correcting this discrepancy.
To me [quoted strata law means] that the strata levies have to be charged to individual owners in accordance with the amounts decided at the AGM. The AGM held in 2012 specified amounts until 30 June 2013 only, and no AGM has been held subsequently. That means that no levies can be raised against owners for subsequent periods, until a further AGM is held.
Are you sure about this? It seems strange to me that the law would allow a strata scheme to run out of money because of a failure to follow correct meetings procedure. I would say the levies can’t be changed without agreement at an AGM – not that levies cease to be collected.
Nowehere in the law does it say that you shouldn’t pay levies that have not been approved at an AGM. In fact, I would also be guided by section 78 which if nothing else, allows for anomalies including that owners are expected to pay levies even when they haven’t received a notice.
78 Manner of levying contributions
(1) An owners corporation levies a contribution required to be paid to the administrative fund or sinking fund by an owner of a lot by serving on the owner a written notice of the contribution payable.
(2) Contributions levied by an owners corporation must be levied in respect of each lot and are payable (subject to this section and section 77) by the owners in shares proportional to the unit entitlements of their respective lots.
(6) Regular periodic contributions to the administrative fund and sinking fund of an owners corporation are taken to have been duly levied on an owner of a lot even though notice levying the contributions was not served on the owner.
Compulsory appointment
More significantly, when you have a statutorily appointed strata manager, they are effectively the owners corp so any decisions you made as owners would be irrelevant. They can set the levies without reference to the owners.
Compulsory appointment is a double-edged sword. OK, you get rid of one dysfunctional system but the price can be giving up all control over your building. To reverse the statutory appointment, you would have to go back to NCAT and either prove gross mismanagement by the New SM or that you as owners have got yourselves sorted out and are capable of running the show yourselves.
Claiming the new guys are just as bad as the old guys may make an NCAT adjudicator ask “what is the common factor in this?” (that would be you, the owners) and make them less, not more likely to rescind the statutory appointment.
One other thing, the fees for a six-unit block are so low it’s hard for firms to justify spending a lot of time on their management. Charges often go up as a result.
Also, complaints to Fair Trading about strata managers will have little or no effect.
I hate to say this but, given your situation, I would recommend selling your unit and buying somewhere in a bigger block that’s better run so you can forget about it.