Beyond the law

This is an interesting tale that comes from talks I have had with people inside CTTT and OFT.

The story goes that one of the developers of an MO, now an SP, was also a council member and did not declare the conflict. The MO development passed at a council meeting by one vote so locals near the development dragged the matter into the courts. The Judge decided that so many people had put money into the MO development that it was not very fair to them to have the decision of the council overturned even though the motion to pass the development should not have passed (because of the undeclared interest being the passing vote). So the MO got to exist even though it originated from wrong doing.

The SP, born from this MO, many years later has many issues but the quiet word from inside the establishment is that some of the SPs issues are so problematic that it does not seem fair to correct the ongoing issues. It is de ja vu; wrong that has become inequitable to fix.

So the SP goes on its merry “autonomy gone mad” way because it has become such a basket case it is possibly too hard to fix without effecting someone adversely. By doing the wrong thing for long enough it has become too difficult to fix.

To fix the SP would require removing the owners from the management but this would incur costs some owners allegedly could not pay. What is classic is that it is people who can afford to pay who are claiming others would not be able to pay. Those who cannot pay are a nameless group who never speak up for themselves. Do they even exist?

The SP has got away with this ongoing degradation by keeping under the radar through its nature of persecuting anyone who dared have issue with the way things are done.

The last thing anyone was allowed to do was to take a matter outside the SP – everything was to be dealt with in-house. Woe be to those who even thought otherwise. On one hand that is a solid community but it is community gone horribly wrong.

I saw the Laresu case mentioned on this forum and had a look. A simple matter that cost significant money. It only took something quite simple to create a significant payout. We have the dysfunctional light switch, we have stairs and rubbish and snakes in the area of the dysfunctional light.
The dysfunctional light is trivial next to some of the other hazards around the place.

Any 6 figure payout, which is not so rare these days, would cripple the SP in question. People in the SP are generally from the lower end of the economic spectrum. The SP operates on the idea no one would ever sue the place if something did go wrong. Some even believe that because they are owners they cannot sue themselves; s93 addresses that misconception but it is as if the Act is the enemy of the SP so it is no surprise owners know very little about what it is to be a strata plan.

What I feel the establishment is failing to recognize is that action will cause hardship to some owners but a failure to act has the potential to cripple every owner. The SP in question is one full of liability risks. One claim and every owner could be in the ” I can't afford that” basket.

This is a story about an SP born out of wrong doing that is now virtually outside the scope of the Act because of perpetual wrong doing  Here is the kicker; this SP claims to be model to the world.

The SP is a model but it is a model of how not to run an SP.

If your SP is in decline and nothing appears to be getting done to fix it by the OC or CTTT then consider the above because that is where it can end up.