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Information on the NSW Office of Fair Trading web page headed Meetings of The Strata Committee suggests notice should have been given to all owners for the SC meeting you mention and ways this should be done. It doesn’t say what to do do if the Strata Committee and / or Strata Manager goes about things in the wrong way. I do hope a clever Flat Chatter knows and weighs in, because we have similar problems where I live all to often.
Also, I’m sure I’ve read here on Flat Chat and in other places agendas and minutes need to be succinct and it doesn’t sound like they were in your case. Again, what’s to be done?
Interesting question. Can I please have some things cleared up?
From memory, Sir Humphrey is in the ACT, yes?
In saying ‘managing agent’ does Sir Humphrey mean ‘strata manager’?
In NSW it is my belief that any owner (or possibly anyone) has the right to ‘inspect the records’ and may ‘discover’ and copy the strata roll. Is that right?
And one might thing the OC secretary could indeed be supplied the strata roll by the strata manager, wouldn’t one?
I think strata managers bend and misquote the rules to protect their turn and so, income.
Quotable quotes:
“Owners Corporation work is like a license to print money.” — A plumber who once lived in our building.
“You’re only as good as your Strata Committee.” — Possibly JimmyT, if not he’ll know who 🙂
Sir Humphrey, in reference to the fences you mention:Â “If you want a fence it must be not [sic] extend beyond the actual unit area boundary.” It sounds like said fence would NOT be on Common Property and so OK.
Having said that, your approach in OUR strata wouldn’t work. The land grabbers would push and push the envelope until the ugly phrase from Peter Gray’s original post became applicable: “implied exclusive use”.
Common Property, wherever it is, is there for the benefit of everyone and serves to add aesthetics and space etc. even if it is ‘adjacent to a unit’ and ‘nobody else is ever likely to want to use it’.Â
I’ll never forget hearing a noise in the middle of the night and looking down from three floors up to see our hippy dippy ground floor neighbour starkers on a bare mattress, dragged onto the Common Property lawn surrounded by candles. It was a hot night.Â
As an owner-resident in a Sydney strata of 32 apartments for 20 years plus now, I reckon I’ve seen just about everything when it comes to dodgy behaviour.
I find Lady Penelope’s laissez fair approach, backed up by technical tribunal decisions, most disturbing.
Any efforts, however subtle, to snavel Common Property by stealth such as is obviously occurring at Peter Gray’s strata should be nipped in the bud fast, especially if it is mucking up the place. If the Strata Manager won’t act and the Strata Committee won’t act, grab the stuff yourself in the dead of night and spirit it away somewhere. Neighbour should get the message.
We live in a Sydney North Shore block of 38 early 70s apartments. These days there are two young couples each with two little dogs plus 5 young couples each with a little dog. That’s 9 happy little dogs. Plus an unknown number of cats, possibly 9, at least 5, most of which roam.
The dogs yap inside often but almost invariably yap outside when their owners take them for their late evening and early morning walks (sometimes at 5am!) to wee and poo, usually in the common property garden areas. Even if they diligently clean up the poo, and they don’t, it’s pretty disgusting.
I don’t get this; young, working couples with trendy, status symbol style puppies who have to stay at home, locked in all day most days while their ‘masters’ go away to work. It seems cruel and self-indulgent to me. (Far as I know, only one dog has an outing with a dog walking service, every couple of days.)
We had the old by-law, ‘no pets without permission but permission couldn’t reasonably be refused’ but a few years ago an ‘enlightened’ committee engineered a change to something similar to the newly gazetted by-law “you can have pets but they have to be registered, documented, OKd or whatever”.
I think the new situation with pets here ‘sucks’. We chose apartment living and this apartment 20 years ago with the understanding there would be no, or few sensible and approved, pets. But now we suffer.
I don’t reckon any of these 9 dogs here are for companionship or comfort. They are all inbred status symbols and it’s cruel on many levels.
We’ve had a similar version of the new NSW pet by-law since before the new rules came in and now I reckon we’ve reached peak puppies and pussies in our Sydney block of 38 units. The by-law won approval narrowly. I lived here with pets not allowed for 18 years.
There are now two couples with two small dogs, that’s four; and six other dogs. So a total of 10. The dogs are at home locked up all day, which I think is cruel. (One only, has a dog walking service every couple of days.) There are, as far as I can see, 9 cats too most of which roam.
But the dog thing: they are all young, working couples with trendy breeds of dog (Boston Terriers etc). I suggest they are not for companionship or comfort but status symbols. I don’t get that! They all seem inbred and devoid of sense and personality to me. Early one morning last week one ‘dog daddy’ in his pyjamas chased his terrier escapee down the driveway cursing and I actually hear him yell at the terrier “F—- you Miffy” as he struggled across the gravel in bare feet. Would’ve been funny if it wasn’t about half past six in the morning.
The little dogs yap a lot while they are locked inside all day, alone; again that seems SO cruel. They yap when taken for late evening and early morning (how about 5am yapping?!) toilet excursions, usually on the common garden areas. Even if the poos are picked up it’s unsavoury and doesn’t seem right. About half of these owners also have their dogs off the lead in common areas which breaks the rules.
So in my humble opinion, I think people in apartments shouldn’t be able to have dogs where they both work externally full time and the dog is home alone more often than not. If it can be shown they are for reasonably full time comfort and companionship, well OK. But limit the number of dogs per strata.
Maybe house cats are OK but when they’re alone more than not, that seems cruel too. Roaming cats? Don’t get me started.