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Greetings one and all,
How much time must a strata mgr on behalf of a strata committee give owners from the time an AGM date is announced for owners to submit motions to include in its agenda?
(a) One strata mgr has given, depending on how you read his letter, one or possibly two business days for owners to provide motions; and
(b) In order to provide motions, if owners wanted to access the strata’s records (so as to acquaint themselves with matters) they were told that a fee of $50 per document would be charged for those documents not uploaded to the strata mgr’s portal. From what I saw, the portal houses only a couple of documents. Not the documents some owners are after.
Weeks ago I asked to access all the strata records (and would take the issue of $50 per document to FT), but was never given a date and time by the strata mgr to inspect them.
Is any of the above legal?
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Basically, you have until the agenda is issued to submit your motions. But then you have to allow time for compilation and printing.
The strata manager might well argue that you have had a whole year in which to scrutinise strata records so they may feel disinclined to hold up the process while you get your ducks in a row.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
Refer to Section 182 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW) to see what kinds of records you can view and how to make a request.
Schedule 4 Fees in the Strata Schemes Management Regulation 2016 says that the owners corporation can charge $31 for the first hour of records inspection and then $16 per half hour or part half hour after the first hour of inspection. The owner bears the costs of making copies.
The Act describes making requests to the “owners corporation”. Perhaps a request to the strata manager is different?
How much time must the SM give for motions? The answer is none.
As Jimmy says you have until the agenda is mailed which more reasonably can be considered to be until the agenda goes to print. No one needs to tell you when that is.It is a perennial problem in strata that people think there is some window of opportunity to lodge AGM motions that they need to be told of when in fact there isn’t. If you have a motion put it in, even if it is the day after your AGM, put it in. As soon as you think “i want that motion at my next AGM” then put it in.
As for the strata search. There is a process where you make a request to search, you pay the fee, you get a date within a certain period. It is all in the Act, ss 182 and 183 and easy enough to find and understand.
You get a date no later than 10 days from the request. Clock is ticking.
If that process breaks down because you agent is a dud then you can go straight to NCAT for an order and NCAT are somewhat sick of OCs withholding records so as long as you have tried the process and failed due to the agent or OC then you will get favorably orders.I think readers should keep in mind if the agent does something wrong it amounts to the OC doing something wrong so it is better to pursue the OC than the agent because FT really do not police agent competency.
Section 54
(3) Any act or thing done or suffered by a strata managing agent in the exercise of any function of
the chairperson, secretary, treasurer or strata committee conferred on the strata managing agent
in accordance with this section—
(a) has the same effect as if it had been done or suffered by the chairperson, secretary, treasurer
or strata committee, and
(b) is taken to have been done or suffered by the chairperson, secretary, treasurer or strata
committee.
(4) This section is subject to section 56.The agents mistakes are the OCs mistakes subject to the exclusions of s 56.
When you are blaming the agent you are generally, in effect, blaming the OC.And please understand there is a management agreement which details what the agents role is. Do not just think they are responsible for everything. Agents are employees who do specific things, the OC is still the boss.
And try to avoid using the words like “is this legal” because it implies it might be illegal and it is actually more non compliant than illegal and these are very different thing. Don’t want to end up on the wrong end of a defamation case.
Is it legal?
Is it compliant; definitely sounds like it is not.If anyone is wondering about a strata manager assuming the duties of the strata committee where there is no such committee, the somewhat contradictory Section 29 of the NSW Act says this:
29 Owners corporation to appoint strata committee(1) An owners corporation must appoint a strata committee of the owners corporation in accordance with this Act.
And this:
(4) If there is no strata committee of an owners corporation, the strata scheme must be administered by the owners corporation, but nothing in this subsection prevents a strata managing agent appointed under this Act from exercising any functions conferred on the agent.
Substitute “should” for “must” in 1) and it all makes sense, otherwise, 4) assumes that 1) has been ignored – so much for the imperative.The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
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