Defamation and harrassment of EC members

Hello 🙂

Ill try and give a concise as possible outline of events.

I bought my first strata property Oct 13.  Over a few months i got to know the people in my complex and one of them was the chairman of the EC.  Frightening person, shocking bully, possible clinical problems.  I clashed with her and then strangely she wanted to be my best friend. i kept her at arms length.  next AGM i joined the EC.  i was voted in as chairman.  She continued to try manipulating me but i implemented changes in how we operated (all voted upon correctly by members) and when she had her “turns” i challenged and pushed back.

her behaviour became so bad (sexual harrasment via email, targeting of other owners not connected to the committee but personal friends of mine, public and derogatory speculation on my sexuality, and disclosure of embarrassing personal details of people’s lives to which she had become party, destruction of property of EC members that also stood up to her) that i soon had a council who refused to meet until she was off the EC.  at the next AGM i then used my perogative to have the proxies without instruction left with the strata manager to get her voted off.  it was stressful.

since then its been constant complaints, deluges of mail to the strata manager demanding i be unseated, accusations of wrongdoing, legal threats, accusations of sleeping with our groundsman, the list is endless.  she became unemployed at the time (mostly due to heavy drinking and personality clashes at work) and so had lots of time to spend on it.  I intervened in a bully incident with the groundsman where she was following, filming and screaming at him.

before the last agm a couple weeks ago, her husband and another resident who had previously assaulted me when i refused to listen to his endless complaints whilst i was covering the gardener’s sick leave and against who i have had to obtain an RO, and NEITHER OF WHOM ARE ACTUALLY OWNERS, issued a letter to all managing agents listed on the strata roll and into the letterboxes of all resident owners, accusing me of misappropriation of funds, assault against the guy that assaulted me (i had not touched him: i told him to get away from me and left the scene immediately), and that i habitually lied to owners about my paid employment.  (we have had some big disposal projects that were forecast to cost about 5k so i completed the work myself and drew a small wage for it, all put before and passed by the committee as is correct, resulting in a saving of 3900 which we are putting to a painting job of common property in 2017.  they asked that all owners proxy their votes to them, so they could get back on teh committee and that the ex chairman (now a freelance gardener) could be charged with grounds upkeep.  in fairness the grounds have suffered through our fence replacements and works in our carpark.  I realise, in hindsight, that this could be seen as dodgy.  The intent certainly wasn’t: it was simply to save bucks so we could do some other stuff.  I worked and billed as an owner and not as a company. don’t know if that makes any difference.

overall, i have worked my ass off to keep the value of our units afloat in a horrible market including some very heavy manual labour.  the strata manager refused to disclose my wages to the resident who hit me as he is not an owner and nor is the husband of the ex-chairman.

i feel justified in suing for defamation but the committee feel that it would lend weight to an obviously ridiculous publication.  however the level of malice worries me (in our EC, the job of chairman is usually referred to as “the moving target for xxxx”) and i think the only way to discourage it in future is to take a strong approach.  is this ill-advised? i am a self employed person in a trade which takes me into peoples homes and this could impact on my ability to have the local client base trust me, depending on how far the rumours reach.