A difficult owner

@magpie said:
What do you do in the case of a very difficult owner/investor. I have been on the committee for a very small block of units for years. We struggle to get work done as our building shifts from owner occupiers to investors. We now face a very difficult new owner/investor who bombards the manager, committee and other owners with emails and threats. Long emails covering many issues and grievances may arrive on Friday afternoon but before you can respond there is a new long email on Monday. To draft a considered response can consume hours then you then receive a hostile response for your trouble. More allegations, more threats… I am beginning to think that anyone is totally mad to be an owner occupier in a small (or any!) building. You are especially mad if you are a committee member and work very very hard on behalf of investors who do not even attend meetings or offer support at all. Any advice?

magipie, don’t know if this helps or not but I experienced a vaguely similar situation with an OC I was previously involved with.  Without knowing the content and validity of each grievance I suggest a email reply including wording along the following lines:

“Thankyou for you email of XXXXX.  It is always good when people take and interest in our commonly shared property.  As you probably realise participation in the Executive Committee and work done for the OC is all done on a voluntary non paid basis.  So for any issue/suggestion received it needs to be decided what needs to be done and who will do it.

While your email contain allegations/grievances it is not clear what specific course of action would result in their resolution.  For each suggestion, it is therefore important that suggestions to the OC/EC outline in a concise manner the following:

1. The exact nature of the problem/issue;

2. Your proposed resolution;

3. The cost of any proposed resolution and from whom the those costs are to be obtained; and

4. The person you recommend implement the solution.  Eg are you willing to oversee and implement the solution?

Thankyou”

Anyway good luck

One thing to do is to quickly check that there is not anything truly urgent such as burst water main, then wait a day or two, and then write to thank the person for their contribution and say the matter will be considered at the next EC meeting. People like this are looking for the satisfaction of making you jump. Of course make sure you respond properly in due course to any matter that has substance but slow down a bit so you are not dancing to this owner’s tune. If their self-important ego is not being stroked as much they often go and bother someone else.

Make sure the EC can laugh about it and build some supporting solidarity there. The most destructive thing about people like this is that people who have joined the EC for the first time and might grow to make a useful contribution get put off and never come back. 

Add me to the ‘difficult owner’ list too. Frankly I am disappointed in the attitude expressed in posts by scotlandx, PeterC and to a lesser extent Cosmo’s though he does have a more practical approach

Our Executive Committee clique seek to marginalize and intimidate anyone who raises an issue which doesn’t suit them. I complained about the Treasurer leaving rubbish outside his door and he attempts to bully me and tells me to “stop wasting everyone’s time with silly emails”.

The Strata Manager from a big firm tells them to ‘ignore’ complaints. Just the ‘tactics’ suggested by scotlandx and PeterC. 

PeterC, I can’t help the mental picture I now have of you and the rest of the elected Executive Committee ‘having a laugh about it and building some supporting solidarity’ amongst yourselves at the expense of some poor sap constituent with something to say you consider unimportant.

I once read that “everyone is right 100% of the time”. Admittedly the book wasn’t about strata living.

I’ve been a strata secretary for over 10 years and I would advise you to, in effect, simply ignore difficult people; that is, wait a week or more and respond in a very brief way.  eg. “Thank you for your correspondence.  The matters raised will be reviewed”.   Read the email, then ignore.

Are you legally entitled to do that? Absolutely.

The only requirement is that the secretary has to “to answer communications addressed to the owners corporation” [SSMA 2015, s43(e)].  And if the mail barrage continues, it could be reasonably argued that ‘not to answer’ was the appropriate answer.

There is no provision for an owner to demand anything from any other person at any time except that an owner may:

• Attend an EC meeting but they cannot speak without permission [SSMA 2015, Sch 2, Cl 13].
• Along with other owners (25% total), request that a general meeting be held [SSMA 2015, s19(4)]
• Request that a motion be put on the next general meeting agenda [SSMA 2015, Sch 1, Cl 4(2) & (3)].  If the problem person is aware of his/her rights and inundates you with agenda request, just summarize them into one item (“the secretary must give effect to the requirement”).  Then at meeting the chairperson can limit speech time per person.

There are no other references that I can find that give further power to an owner.

Note that there is overriding protection for the EC members that, as long as you act in “good faith” you cannot be held liable for any failure to act  [SSMA 2015, s260].

If you read the Act (and I would encourage you to read and understand the above references), you will realise it has been written with the knowledge that there will always be difficult people who are going to harass the volunteer EC members.  In essence, the Act explicitly gives protection for volunteers as long as they are trying to do a good job for the benefit of the OC. 

Follow this link: https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ssma2015242/

Note: Although the 2015 Act is yet to have a proclaimed commencement date, the references given will (hopefully) last longer than if the current 1996 Act was referenced.

There is a big difference between a committee that ignores legitimate correspondence and those that have to deal with floods of often irrational and abusive emails and letters, often from the one person.

How do you tell which is which? Often it’s the sender who establishes the context and criteria, like the one who sends subsequent abusive and overlong emails before the committee has a chance to address the original message, then complains that the matters are not being addressed.

This is a form of bullying and, frankly, the tactic of sending a brief, stock acknowledgement is probably the best way to deal with it.

The committee might also establish a set of protocols that they can send out to people, stating how and when correspondence is dealt with and the restrictions on the committee’s ability to deal with matters without holding a meeting.

The protocols might also state that if owners want their concern to be addressed in a timely manner, communications in the first instance should be no longer than, say, 100 words, they should not be abusive, accusatory or threatening.

Communications that contain accusations of wrongdoing and threats of legal action will, necessarily, take longer to process as legal issues have been raised and greater care is required.  Also, subsequent communications will not be considered until the first communication has been dealt with.

If a serial email writer becomes a pest – and we all know these people exist in strata – they can be a terrible drain on committee members’ time and energy.  There are legal avenues that can be pursued to deal with ECs that are to lazy to address serious issues. Multiple verbal attacks are not productive for either party

Sending torrents of long-winded complaints wastes everyone’ time.  Keep your questions and letters of complaint short and to the point, then no one has any reason for ignoring them. If they are ignored, consider taking a Section 138 action against the EC at NCAT to force their hand.

Funny how demanding “both sides of the story” often actually means “don’t argue”.

Happily for Isydowner there’s another strata forum which is very popular with people who have fallen foul of the high standards we impose here and where you can have a good old collective whinge. Enjoy.

Pamster said 

Bravo Isydowner for your comments, it’s a shame though that you may not now see this response.

and …

No, I am not a serial pest / email writer, and neither am I vexatious (this is borne out by my successes) and to read … on this forum that other people could have the same view is equally offensive.

So you support Isydowner indulging in abusive language but object to people being described as “serial pests” because someone elsewhere has described you as that?

Am I the only one who sees the double standard here?

Isydownder was free to express his opinions but the language and the personal attacks he employed were simply not acceptable.

By the way, Isydowner can read anything he likes here, he just can’t participate any more because he was warned about his tone and took that as a opportunity to be even more aggressive.

I try to maintain an open dialogue but I am not interested in allowing anyone to be personally abused on this forum, regardless of their opinions.