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I recently visited my local OFT office to watch a strata matter. Neither party showed up so there i was in an empty room except for one of our local CTTT Members. We got talking to fill some of the two hours the Member now had to fill. The Member i refer to is highly qualified and a good quality Member as far as i know.
During our talk Seiwa got mentioned and i found it interesting that the Member somewhat viewed Seiwa in the context of the situation of Seiwa and not as a general statement regarding s62 of the Act; the duty to maintain and repair. I read a lot on this forum about Seiwa being a universal statement that now compels OC's to be pro-active in their approach to all s62 requirements. To me the Seiwa statements regarding being pro-active about s62 seem to be applicable to strata living and not just the case in question.
I now know not to expect that interpretation from everyone at CTTT. This may mean that some people will have to go to the District or Supreme Court to have Seiwa enforced as a universal statement.
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I recently attended the OCN seminar “Repairs and Maintenance – Rights and Responsibilities”. Some of the funding for this came from the Office of Fair Trading ( an excellent seminar I highly recommend)
Some presenters stated that the absolute duty in Siewa has been reduced/modified by other decisions. However, I don't recall which cases they referred to.
I hope that's not the case, because with regard to my original post /forum/common-property/damage-to-parked-vehicle-in-basement-carpark/ , and in the absence of any advice to the contrary, I'm going to rely upon that ruling of the NSW Supreme Court to lodge a Statement of Claim against my Owners Corporation.
The basis of my Claim is going to be that as my Owners Corporation was aware of the problem of carpark leachate, but didn't undertake the Common Property Risk Assessment that was twice minuted in AGM Papers, and instead admitted that it relied upon residents to report leachate problems that it would then address; that places it in breach of its statutory responsibilities under S62(1) of the SCMA.
Even though the other Visitors' Parking Spaces in my Plan are regularly occupied by the same vehicles day-in and day-out and the O/C has done nothing to stop that, and that none of those Spaces is identified in any way, I plan to acknowledge that I shouldn't have parked in the Visitors' Space even for 15 hrs, and that I'm reducing the amount of my Claim in an effort to show “reasonableness” even though S62(1) imposes strict liability for my car's damage upon the O/C.
Any comments on the legal opinions of a Chartered Engineer and part-time Strata Manager would be most welcome?
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