Victoria: A shambolic state of strata chaos

Austman wrote:

The poster seems to primary want Strata Police. Or some authority that will investigate their issues and take appropriate intervening action.

I think you’re being a bit harsh.  The strata resident is just asking that the professionals and the governing bodies do what they are supposed to do.

The only authority that can enforce strata law in VIC is the legal system. That’s the Tribunals and the Courts.

But if the mandatory mediation bodies are underfunded and overburdened and refusing to take strata disputes, who do you turn to?

All of the rest are just advice bodies or mediation bodies that have no actual authority.

No, but they are part of the process the applicants are urged to take before they get to a tribunal.

It’s nothing new. It’s been that way since the start of strata.

That is exactly the excuse we used to hear before the Owners Corporation Network was formed in NSW but they persevered and got crucial laws changed to protect apartment owners (some of which have been quietly taken up in Victoria.) In the 20 or so years since I started writing about strata, changes to NSW strata laws have included:

• Limits on the number of proxy votes one owner can hold, improving democracy and accountability
• Bans on developers demanding purchasers’ proxy votes as part of the sales agreement (ditto)
• Limits on developers running down the clock on sunset clauses
• Limits on developers controlling the major decisions on their blocks after the units had been sold
• Limits on the contract lengths for strata managers in new buildings (one year at first, then a maximum of three at a time)
• Limits on and regulation of short-term rentals in apartment blocks
• Education campaigns for strata owners on their rights and responsibilities
• Lower voting thresholds for capital works that improve sustainability
• A Building Commissioner who works closely with representatives of strata owners to drive shonky developers out of the business (and maybe into Victoria where the laws are less rigidly enforced).

There’s a lot more but I wonder how much, if any of it would have occurred if NSW strata owners had accepted the status quo and hadn’t started holding politicians to account for their decisions (or lack thereof).

I think any system that allows a cabal of owners to legally meet in secret to make decisions that are enabled by self-serving professionals to the detriment of the blocks they are supposed to be managing and protecting – and then for their owners to have no effective means of calling them to account – is deeply, deeply flawed, whether it has always been that way or not.

While I sympathise with the poster, there comes a time when one has to decide: Seek professional legal advice and or take the matter to the Tribunal. Looking for an authority to intervene in your issues is not going to happen.

Yes, you are right, we have to police our own strata schemes and take our committees, managers and developers to court or the Tribunal if need be.  But when the barriers to that are insurmountable and the Tribunal decision-making is highly unpredictable, taking action is too daunting for most people and nothing will ever change.

Establishing simple criteria for what constitutes unacceptable actions in strata, and simple remedies for when the rules are broken is the only intervention required from the powers that be.  Everything else would follow from that.

I respect your opinion, but I am far from convinced.  It seems to me that Victorian apartment owners are more excluded from decision-making than they are in NSW and that just makes it easier for small groups of self-interested owners to make decisions that affect the long-term value of properties.

The ABC report on the “rotting” buildings exposed by the flammable cladding remediation is, I suspect, the tip of the iceberg.  I am pretty sure many of these will be buildings where defects were not pursued and repairs were not undertaken while the owners were told that the main objective was to keep fees down.

It’s only recently that Victorian strata committees didn’t require a special resolution to initiate legal action.  I wonder how many suits against developers were avoided because they had enough votes in their pockets to block any action.

As for your scenario of decisions being delayed by owners being informed through the distribution of minutes and agendas, that may well happen in NSW (although the advance notice of meetings is barely a week).  But even if it does happen, surely that’s better than committees meeting in “secret” – I don’t know how else to describe people meeting where outsiders can’t observe them – and then refusing to share their deliberations with other owners.

The proof is in the pudding and if Victorian strata isn’t about to be revealed as having huge systemic problems, I will cover my favourite hat in chocolate sauce and eat it.

You might be interested in this week’s podcast when I post it on Tuesday – you get an honourable mention – but I suspect you will hate it.

Just to be clear, the comments that I have made are not based on what strata owners in Victoria and only strata owners in Victoria do – it’s based on 20 years of writing about strata in NSW  and elsewhere in Australia and getting feedback from all over the country.

Victoria is not unique in having strata committees that will do anything to keep levies (fees) down or will keep owners in the dark about their decisions or neglect to maintain common property.  Far from it.  My point is that the situation has been ripe for exploitation and Victoria would be unique if no one was exploiting it.

I don’t doubt that you didn’t experience any of that in your strata schemes – I haven’t in mine – but other people have and do.  Just look at the letter – the one you criticised for wanting “strata cops” to come and fix the problem.  That is a very different experience to the one you had.  It doesn’t invalidate your experience and yours doesn’t make theirs any less believable.

And as for the committee decisions and minutes – that’s all fine if the committees obey the law.  But what happens when they don’t?  Call the non-existent strata cops? Or maybe pressure the government and ask them to make the law work for everyone.

That’s what we did in NSW and it’s now paying off.

For the record, my position is that strata schemes may have ignored basic maintenance and that led to leaks and internal deterioration.  People make small decisions with big consequences and as long as the owners think everything is OK, they tend not to want to spend more than they have to.

You description of the barriers to legal action is pretty much what I said – there’s no disagreement there.  If anything, if reinforces my point.

With your experience in strata you will know that only a small number of people want to even attend AGMs, let alone stand for strata committees.  People who do join committees do so for a number of reasons – some to serve the community, some to protect their investment and some to take that a stage further and make sure not a cent is spent that doesn’t obviously need to be spent.

Our correspondent wrote about a long-term maintenance plan that had no budget and therefore had never had any money spent on maintenance.  The Committee refused to communicate with them and they were fobbed off with excuses and complaints about their inquiries.

When the committee and strata managers hide information from owners,  a consequence is that owners don’t know what’s going on (obviously). Why then would the vote them off?

Unless you get involved, you don’t know how much is being hidden or misrepresented. And why would an average person who doesn’t realise they are being led up the garden path, get involved until the damage has been done?

That was our correspondent’s reality and she is not alone.  She and others in her situation don’t need strata cops – they need one of the many agencies that are supposed to protect apartment owners and residents – when a problem is brought to them – just to do their jobs.

As I said before – these issues are not unique to Victoria – what’s different is that it seems the Victorian authorities and many owners have zero interest in addressing them.

And as for my earlier comments about journalist putting these issues in the too-hard basket, I’ve written to a colleague at the Age offering them a cracking story and haven’t even an acknowledgement.

That’s how low a priority strata is in Victoria – it’s too hard and nobody cares.