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“You are not to contact us directly. This is a formal invasion of privacy, and is being documented.” — Strata committee member to me.He’s wrong, isn’t he?This is a direct quotation from a member of our strata committee to me today. No ‘Dear’ or ‘Kind regards’. It is after three emails to the strata manager which had no reply at all from them or the committee. (Sydney NSW)There is a 20 grand project about to be rammed through which seems to be a driven by this non-office holder member and will benefit… mostly him. Some of us see it is a precursor to a land grab of common property.The budget was approved at a somewhat stacked general meeting but with the promise of further plans and consultation with owners / residents consideration of plantings etc. and an OH&S report. None of this has been aired.It seems quite corrupt. Probably a dysfunctional and an interim order probably should be called for. What do you think?
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In my humble opinion, and I’m still a strata novice, he is wrong. While powers can be delegated to the Strata Manager by the Strata Committee and the Strata Committee can ASK for communications to be directed to the Strata Manager, no way is it an ‘invasion of privacy’ for you to attempt to speak to an elected representative on your committee. And they should, in fact, be willing to speak with you.
Have a google and look at the forms on the NSW Office of Fair Trading’s web site and maybe even NCAT and find reasons a Strata Committee may be found to be dysfunctional. Sounds like you may have a few different ones.
In my neck-of-the-woods, stuff-all notice is being taken of the changes to the Act encouraging transparency, probity and good governance.
I hope anyone more knowledgeable than I will correct me if I’m wrong or help further.
I certainly would expect an EC member to respond or at least politely ask me to direct correspondence through the secretary or by whatever means they prefer to use – perhaps a special email address set up for the purpose.
The appropriate response would be “Please don’t quote non-existent laws at me” followed by “if you don’t want to represent people, why did you join a committee?” And that would be followed by “oh, I get it, to serve your own interests!”
“Invasion of privacy” is a made-up law but the critical thing here is a committee member refusing to engage with owners to discuss issues relevant to the strata scheme.
The long game on this is to start a website or newsletter alerting other owners to the problem so that these people get voted off at the next AGM (if enough of them agree with you).
The short game is to put motions on to the agenda for your next EC meeting and then turn up and ask to speak. If they don’t allow you to, ask for that to be minuted.
Other options include
Applying to NCAT for an interim order preventing them from spending the money.
Filling in a form requesting mediation at Fair Trading.
Applying to NCAT for orders under section 232.
You have options but a first step should be a letter to the secretary asking them how owners are expected to communiate with the committee and how the committee should be expected to respond. Just that. No “he said, she said”. A simple question requiring a straight answer.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
The following is just general comment on EC communication, not a reflection on the original post.
99% of the time an EC should welcome communication from owners. I can understand that an EC might like to standardise that communication to keep track of it, like, for example, requesting that it go through the secretary or the managing agent or some other means.
Where I am, we had a tradition of always trying to get an EC member from each of the 5 sections of our site. This has advantages since owners are more likely to already know (or can more easily get to know) the EC member who lives close by. Owners often direct comments and requests through their ‘local member’. If it is sent to the managing agent, we expect that to be forwarded to us, whether for action or a decision or just noting.
We do occasionally have individual owners who become a bit over-communicative, sometimes to the point of being vexatious. They tend to pick on one EC member who seems most receptive. Imposing some formality about channels of communication can help in those circumstances, but we would not shut them out.
The flip-side of the over-communicative minority is the larger number of people who we wish would communicate more to us. In spite of regularly inviting comment and feedback, some are reluctant to bother us with matters they see as minor. However, these are often things we would easily have fixed or otherwise addressed if only we had known about them.
“Poor communication” is a common catch-all complaint in my experience. In one highly ironic situation, an owner complained about the poor communication from the EC while attending the special meeting we had called so that owners could ask questions directly of the legal expert who had given the legal advice that we had circulated to owners with an invitation to attend the meeting so that owners could hear it explained further if necessary.
Hi,
If your a current financial member of the strata scheme you are entitled to be advised of any matters which effects the common ground of the property in joint.
The strata manager agent should ownly act on the lawful direction from your EC or advise on state reg’s.
Your EC has limited power to act alone on expenditure with out the majority vote.
Regardless of the invasion of privacy quote from other body corp member, you can vote them out and change the agent if the majority consider it to be in there best interest.
Kind Regards.
Digby
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