Any tips for ‘Keeping a Pet’ Adjudication?

This is a classic case of an EC that’s too lazy to check their own by-laws and make sure they reflect what their community wants.

The default model by-law says, as has been discussed, that you can’t have a pet without permission and permission can’t be unreasonably refused.

As we have pointed out many times in Flat Chat, saying that you have never allowed pets is not “reasonable” grounds for refusal becasue the by-law still allows pets, albeit under certain conditions.

In this instance, I suspect Claire has a pretty strong case to take to Fair Trading and NCAT (especially since the EC has refused to mediate).  But this is an object lesson for Owners Corps that really don’t want pets in their buildings.  Your by-laws have to reflect that and if you don’t have the support to change the by-law, then maybe the EC is out of step with its owners.

@Blueman said:
Well, why have these sort of model by-laws in the first place? What was discussed when the scheme was first set-up? If the government meant for it to be a free-for-all on the matter, then there would be no need for the model by-law to exist.

There is no free-for-all.  It sounds in this case like there is a model by-law in place that says you can only have a pet if you have permission but that permission can’t unreasonably be refused.

Strata owners have the opportunity to adopt  a different by-law by a simple majority vote at their first AGM or by a special resolution at any general meeting.

The problem in this case is that the EC has kept a by-law that allows pets conditionally but have pursued a policy of no pets under any circumstances. That is unreasonable if only because new purchasers are being misled into thinking there was a chance they might be allowed to have pets.

All it would require would be a change of personnel on an EC and you could find the same building allowing pets without conditions.

Among proposed changes that died with the postponement of the strata law reforms were one that changed the model by-law to saying pets were allowed unless there were reasonable objections and another that demanded owners review their by-laws every few years.

But, honestly, any executive committee that bumbles along, bending its by-laws out of shape because “we’ve always done it this way”, can expect to get slapped in the face with the wet fish of reality sooner or later. 

Read your by-laws.  If they don’t clearly state what the majority of owners in your building want, change them.  It’s as simple as that.

@Blueman said:
Who’s to say that in this case the refusal was unreasonable? Just because the application was rejected, does not make it unreasonable. The OP states the block had been pet free from some time.

If the existing owners wanted to allow pets they could introduce a bylaw for that purpose, it seems they haven’t. Seems by refusing applications the majority of existing owners don’t want pets.

If the existing owners wanted to allow pets and were unhappy with the decisions of the existing EC, they could change the EC at the appropriate meeting, but they haven’t done that either.

JT, our bylaws do attempt to address this issue, but they make no mention of horses, cattle, pigs, goats, fish, snakes, lizards, spiders, cockroaches or a whole heap of other animals, etc.

You are missing the point.  The model by-law says pets can’t be allowed without the permission of the EC. Which effectively means pets CAN be allowed WITH the permission of the EC.

It then says that permission can’t unreasonably be refused.

So what is unreasonable? Saying “we have never allowed pets” is not a reason … it’s a statement of previous decisions.  A reasonable purchaser might reasonably assume that their pets would be allowed if there was no reason – eg, they didn’t cause a nuisance or were too big or dangerous or smelly or whatever – to refuse.

Your sarcasm is misplaced. Try applying reason to your arguments and you may see where they are flawed. And ask yourself why you have a by-law that addresses pets when you seem to think you don’t need one.

@Blueman said:
I am well aware of the NSW model bylaws. So assuming this case is in NSW, in my opinion based on the information provided by the OP, the schemes EC has acted reasonably in this matter.

 … and assuming these are the model by-laws in place.  Even so, any reasonable person would read the model by-laws to mean that they were allowed to have a pet provided they could get permission.  And the by-law states that permission could not be unreasonably refused.

And the original poster has a well-behaved pet and they look after it properly – they had had no specific complaints about the dog’s behaviour – so there is no reason to refuse it, except for prejudice and dumb ignorance of the way strata schemes and by-laws work.

You are entitled to your opinion, Blueman, but I would hate any reader of these posts to think that the model by-law that essentially allows pets, employed in conjunction with a history of refusal of companion animals, would prevent owners from bringing pets into a strata scheme.  It doesn’t, regardless of what you think.

My advice to Flatchatters is this: If you want to prevent people from ever bringing any pets into your scheme, pass a by-law that says “no pets”.  Don’t depend on a by-law that actually allows pets under certain conditions.  It really is as simple as that and lazy ECs that can’t be bothered to change their by-laws to reflect the wishes of the majority of owners deserve all the trouble they get.