- This topic has 11 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 4 months ago by .
-
Topic
-
Recently our Owners Corporation gave permission for a Real Estate Agent to erect a For Sale sign in a Common Property area in front of our building for the sale a Residential Unit in our Strata Plan { in a suburb of Sydney , NSW } under several conditions including that the Sign be removed within 7 days of the advertised selling date.
Within 2 days of the sale by Auction a SOLD sticker had been stuck across the Sign , as is common practice { c.p. , not to be confused with C.P. for Common Property },
however on the 8th day the sign was still in place.
A request was made to the Selling Agency by our Strata Manager on the 10th day to remove the sign , however on the 12th day the sign is still in place.
Do any readers here know: is the Owners Corporation without any Legal repercussions permitted under NSW Law and/or Sydney City Council Regulations { whichever may apply } to now remove the sign ?
… and if so , to where is it required to be put ?
We prefer to not have to deliver it to the Selling Agent’s premises.
-
Replies
-
The Owners Corporation has the right to allow the placement of signs as it sees fit. They own the common property, not the real estate agent selling the property. As an EC member I have always believed in allowing owners to facilitate the sale of their property by allowing them or their agent to erect a sign when requested. But we determine where the sign will go. Of course a lot of agents will just plonk a sign on the common property without the common courtesy of asking.
When the property is sold many agents would leave the sign there forever, with a sold sticker on it. It then serves only to advertise the agency, not the property for sale. In such cases I have had no hesitation in pulling the sign out of the ground and leaving it for the agent to collect. In one case I did this and the sign was promptly replaced by another with a sold sticker over it! In that case I rang the agent concerned and asked them to collect the two signs.
As far as legal ramifications are concerned, my interpretation would be that as long as you don’t destroy the sign or permanently remove it from the agent’s possession you couldn’t be charged with theft. In any case the agent wouldn’t want to be out of favour with the residents as a whole by instigating legal action. There’s no way I would bother to deliver a sign to the agent’s premises, they put it in, they can collect.
In order to avoid numerous and on-going requests (or not) by Real Estate Agents (REAs) to place their signage on the Common Property, our Owners Corporation (O/C) resolved to adopt a “signage policy” and to then distribute that to all local REAs and to place it as another download on our website.
The terms of our policy are similar to those in the permission that your O/C granted, with the additional conditions being that we nominated on a site-plan the positions where signage may be placed on the Common Property in order to avoid the placement of those on balcony balustrades and additionally damage to landscaping and irrigation lines, limited the size of the signs to avoid those four-posted monstrosities, and advised that signs installed in contravention of our signage policy, including those left in place beyond 7 days from settlement, would be removed and stored in a nominated and easily accessible location on the CP for 14 days for collection by REAs, and after that time, and without further advice, signage would be destroyed.
It took a couple of years and the removal of a dozen or so signs for our message to sink-in but eventually the REAs, or more particularly the random people who they paid to put-up their signage, got it – very few problems now despite more Units being listed for sale!
It is good that the real estate agents are being repeatedly briefed on this signage issue. It is because it can be quite frustrating to see a sign still being in your front yard when you are all ready to settle down after moving in. It makes you feel as though there is still unsettled business that needs to be done before that sign disappears. They need to make it a practice to remove the sign on their own when the deal has been closed.
Whale has been generous in allowing seven days after settlement. My practice, when in a position to stipulate terms, was to make it 10 working days after exchange of contracts – which often means the day of an auction. A week after settlement could mean the sign, and the agent’s self-promotion, would stay in place nearly two months – or even longer.
Wow – a touch petty, No ?
Why not ring the agent and tell him nicely.
@keith said:
Why not ring the agent and tell him nicely.
Generally the cost of removing the sign is greater then the value of the sign and the longer it stays in place the more free advertising the agent receives so he has no incentive to remove it, in fact he benefits the longer it stays their.
In future, get any agent to provide a letter in writing authorizing the OC to remove and bin the sign, with any costs being charged to the agent.
Or better yet – get them to provide a deposit up front.
With the agent’s written confirmation, there can be no comeback, and the deposit is lost.
Further to my post of 1st November, I can report what may be a widening of this issue. An apartment on a main road close to the local shopping centre/transport interchange has for some weeks carried a larger than usual “sold by” sticker with prominent portraits of the selling agent and his young offsider. More recently, another sticker has been added below the first – “bought by” a buyer’s agent!
I await developments; will the selling agent react with outrage and remove the sticker that is, in effect, gaining a free ride on the agent’s hardware? Selling agents like to boast about the great prices they realise; buying agents do the same about how they keep the price down to a level that more than recoups the presumably substantial fees that they charge.
Who is winning – the vendor or the purchaser? Perhaps the respective agents are the only ones coming out ahead.
Seems like a tricky situation actually! But as I’m not really qualified, my 2 cents worth is that you should be able to remove it on your own and trash the thing, or at the very least pack it into a moving box and put it somewhere out of sight. I don’t think you need to have the estate agents come by to do that for you right?
We had a similar situation in our plan but the sign was on the nature strip. After the sale & after what we deemed as a reasonable amount of time, one of our owners – a big burly guy – removed it & took it into the real estate agent’s office & left it there – he didn’t say a word to them when he dropped it off – it was classic – the agent did not say a word either & there were no repercussions, although I should mention the big guy was already not impressed with the agent as the agent had lied to him about certain things when he purchased his unit.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.