How about a few positive thoughts on how to improve it?

JimmyT said:

And let's create a “move on or move out” ruling – if someone has more than, say, three goes at their Owners Corporation, they can't come back to the CTTT for a year.  If life in their building is so bad, they should move out.

Move where; to another bad building, and another and another until one finds a decent one that could then degrade to become a bad one because three spins of the chocolate wheel means it is time to move out.  I do not think a three strikes clause is a good idea.

Remove the so called “Super Tribunal” from the equation.

CTTT dealt with just over 1450 applications in 2009/10. There are roughly 260 working days in a year. That is 5.5 cases per working day.

Strata is only 2.5% of the CTTT cases load and so there is no real incentive for professional development in that particular area. It is not cost effective.

Detach strata from the general day to day cases of CTTT and make it a specialist arm of CTTT instead of something Members deal with outside of their ordinary day of Tenancy and Retail matters.

IF a Strata specific arm was set up;

• using just 2% of the CTTT annual budget (based on the 2009/10 CTTT report) and
• a $10 government levy, per unit, for SP’s over 50 units – payable to the new strata specific arm by each OC after each AGM – required by new legislation.

THEN a strata specific body could have all the infrastructure of CTTT but it also has over $1,000,000 per year to be strata specific with.

For over a million dollars a year can a group of people specialising in strata deal with less than 6 matters a day?

If a million isn't enough then how much would it cost to have specialists deal with 6 matters a day?

Legislation should be modified to make decisions set precedents for other matters at that level until an actual court ruling sets a real legal precedent. (End the lottery and make outcomes more predictable)
Given the repeat nature of many cases by creating a standard it would mean many cases might never occur and some that do would be determined much quicker.

Hi Jimmy,

Just a suggestion, but maybe if some of the legislation was changed so that the process of enforcing the by-laws/act didn’t cost the OC so much would be a good move? Maybe structuring it so that the OC were able to pocket a portion of any fines issued or get an order for costs??

The people doing things right shouldn’t be burdened with the costs of those that want to spoil it!

Also, maybe, just maybe the OFT could provide information events for strata owners/purchaser’s? a lot of the issues in strata is that owners don’t understand what they have purchased/own

1) Impose immediate penalties and Jail terms on EC members and strata managers for fraud, dipping into strata money directly or indirectly. (that will scare the shit out of most of these corrupt semi-retired pensioners)

2) Impose a $10,000 fine for breach of bylaws (no exceptions)

3) Streamline the law so it is easy to understand and follow.

The  urbanspaceman and bpositive offer a “hardcore” solution.
We have about 10km of internal roads with a 20km speed limit. Everybody breaks the 20km/h by-law. Imagine the revenue someone would gain with 100 people breaking that by-law everyday,

Impose a $10,000 fine for breach of bylaws (no exceptions) – that is a million a day.

Hardcore!

I fully support the strata police concept.

Consistency in the decision making process is important. 

In QLD, QCAT publishes all its decisions which forces a consistent approach from the tribunal in making its decisions.

In the CTTT, there is no guarantee of a win because another similar case was decided in a certain manner. This is problematic and should be addressed.  

Simone Balsara

Lawyer

Speeding is enforced by the cops, not by me making a complaint, going to mediation, adjudication and then applying for orders.

Currently to get a party to abide by the law, you are forced to go to the CTTT and start a process that is adversarial, lengthy and stressful.

Much confrontation could be removed if a specialist strata department could advise on the law to the parties as it relates to an issue. This should solve most conficts.

I understand this is, in part, how the system used to work in the 'olden days'.

I'd be more than happy to pay a $50 levy per annum for a great, professional public service with a raison d'etre being to prevent conflict and fine recalcitrant parties.

If my information is correct, the last update of model by-laws was 1997 and the Strata Schemes Act is dated 1996.  So it has been a long time without reviews or updates already.

Building Codes are updated yearly and Australian Standards every 3 years I believe.  The legislation for strata affects alot of people already and will affect alot more in the future.  The way we all live has changed since the late 90's.  So its about time for something to be done.

JimmyT said:

I would think, in the meantime, making it obligatory for Owners Corporations to enforce their by-laws would be a major step in the right direction..

Great idea Jimmy T. Say the legislation was amended to do this – what are you're thoughts on forcing compliance on an OC not enforcing its own by-laws?