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Righto first time poster here so go easy !
In my building ( I’m a 5 year owner ) we have a pizza shop as a tenant that has been there since the building was constructed in 2001, now they are using 2 Common Property storage area for storing of food and equipment. I assumed that they were paying rent to the Owners Corporation.
We recently had a change in the onsite Property managers and it was threw conversations with him that we both discovered that they werent paying rent and they were also stealing electricity to run commercial fridges stored in these 2 common property storage spaces.
This led me to searching threw the Strata books as I wanted to see if there were any documents as to how they had secured these spaces, no documents were found.
I can only assume the original developer ‘ gifted the use ‘ of these spaces and nobody ?? was any the wiser over the years.
The Pizza shop owners when challenged on the occupation of the 2 spaces brought up squatters rights and the Strata Manager has indicated that the Owners Corporation has no power under the Strata Act to remove the squatters from the Common property ! WTF sorry but these has got me very frustrated.
Funny thing is our Property manager had contacted the Strata Manager on numerous occasion and asked him to supply him with any documentation and it wasnt supplied. This should have been alarm bells to the Strata manager yet nothing was done. This also occured within the 12 year statute for squatters possesion, therfore potentially making the Strata manage liable if the Pizza shop gains legal possesion of the common property should a squatters claim be successful. i know this sound crazy but it appear that they have stripped atleast $100,000 value from the owners corporation thru lost rent and electricity use.
So has there ever been a successful squatters claim in Strata land ?
Under the strata act can an owners corporation really not evict an occupier from a common property storage area ?
What course of Legal Action could be taken for the theft of Electricity ?
many thanks Stephen
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