Understanding by-laws

@daphne diaphanous said:
I need help understanding the following two clauses in our by-laws. The obvious typo in subclause 2 is not mine. Our SP was registered prior to 1/7/97.

Damage to common property:

1) An owner or occupier of a lot must not mark, paint, drive nails or screws or the like into, or otherwise damage or deface any structure that forms part of the common property without the approval, in writing, of the owners corporation.

OK, think of it this way, the paint on your interior adjoining walls is yours but the first molecule of wall underneath is common property.  So you can paint the interior any colour you like but when you start hammering nails or drilling holes you are entering a world of potential pain. The same applies to the exterior of your front door, which is comom property all the way through to the first molecule of pain on the inside.

Why is this so restrictive? I was at a conference recently where a strata lawyer told the story of a client who was mounting a flat screen TV on his wall when his power drill hit a hot water pipe servicing several units.  Tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage later, he understood the thinking behind what seems to be an over-cautious approach to common property.

2) An approval given to the owners corporation under subclause (1) cannot authorise any additions to the common property.

I cannot make sense of subclause 2. Can anyone help please?

There is a heritage building right in the middle of Sydney where a real estate agent dominated the EC, sold adjoining apartments and then used the equivalent of clause 1 to allow the apartments to be combined.

And while that was a major pain for other residents, it was even worse for the people who bought the flats believing they had permission to remove walls.

The authorities came along, saw what had been done to their heritage listed interiors and demanded that they be reinstated using bricks and timber that were at least as old as the materials that had been removed.

All that aside, clause two is there just to make sure that if you are thinking of doing a bit more than hanging a picture, you know there will be a whole other set of hoops for you to jump through.

What’s an addition to the common property?  Anything attached to CP that wasn’t there before (or, indeed, a bit of CP that has been removed).
 

@daphne diaphanous said:
Thank you JimmyT. Does that mean subclause 2 prevents an owner attaching a pergola to a back wall?

A pergola?  It stops you hanging a pot plant off a hook!

All sarcasm aside – that’s exactly the kind of thing it is intended to prevent (without proper approval and the requisite special resolutions).

By the way Daphne it is a standard by-law, it distinguishes what requires ordinary approval and what requires approval by special resolution, which is covered by Section 65A of the Act.