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Dear Jimmy,
I really enjoy reading your articles and the responses from experts has give us a lot of help.
I say ‘us 'because I live in a large (200 plus units) Strata Titled Retirement Village in country NSW. Our strata manager (SM) has been with us for just over two years and his appointment was made with a hint of collusion. When he took over our sinking fund was holding $360,000:00
and at the end of last June it was $223,000:00 in debt. The Auditor expressed a concern over the viability of the village in the future.
The executive committee of the Owners Corporation agrees with all the SM says and as a consequence the decisions madeare often to the detriment of the owners. If one dares to criticise the SM or the executive then one becomes the subject of ridiculeand harassment in the minutes of meeting, written of course by the SM. Unfortunately the owners are split in their opinion of the competence of theSM; 1/3 think he is marvellous, 1/3 think he is incompetent and the remaining 1/3 are too old or infirm to care so there is no way we can get a majority vote to have his contract cancelled.
Can you suggest a way to legally handle this really scary situation?
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Many thanks.
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Wow! My off the cuff advice would be to seek a s162 appointment of a good manager. It sounds like that between the EC and SM that the management has been let go to the complete detriment of “all owners”.
The post is talking about a half a million dollar change in the equity of the sinking fund.
I would suggest contacting the Institute of Strata Title Managers, explaining the situation and seeing if they can recommend a highly competent member who would be willing to consent to being s162 agent OR seek out your own. I would love to recommend a name or two but the nature of this forum suggests i should not do so; the point is there are some very good agents to be found. Some of these agents can manage remotely (they are based in the city but they have the skills to manage a rural SP well)
You could try to remove the EC and get a more responsible group of owners to instruct the SM but if that is not possible then a s162 order could be in order.
If 1/3 of owners think the SM is incompetent then that is enough support to force an EGM (cl 31 of Sch 2 of the SSMA) to try remove the EC (cl 4 of Sch 3 of the SSMA) and to try to appoint a new agent.
The mere act of forcing an EGM to air the matter might get enough support from the apathetic element to get the change you need.Your SP will become insolvent at some point if this backward financial slide continues. It is no wonder the auditor is passing dire comments.
The change in your sinking fund position is not good. Poor planning, poor budgeting, penny pinching AGM's, extravagant spending; whatever the reason is it needs correcting because no SP can continue such a slide.My two suggestions are to air the problem at an EGM and seek some good outcomes from the EGM OR to seek a s162 appointment if you can find a quality SM. Even CTTT will have trouble ignoring such a shift in equity.
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