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  • #7985

    Hi all, I’d like to know if anyone is aware about a strata which held 4 (or 3, for that matter) general meetings within less than a year. This is not a simple curiosity question. As you can guess, we are going to have our 4th GM. I read a lot of posts on this forum where decent members of ECs complain about unfair distribution of workload. Now you can imagine the workload on the EC in our strata. To give you an indication that the previous meetings were not held simply for the sake of it, here is the list of main issues resolved in the prior GMs.

    a) Successfully (!) fought off a case in CTTT (!) where an opposing owner applied for an appointment of a mandatory strata manager. To explain the exclamation marks, our opponent was (still is) a professional strata manager with multi-decade experience who hired a strata lawyer (!) to file the CTTT complaint.

    b) Got unanimous (!) vote in approving (yet another !) round of special levies. As the background, up until the meeting, the absolute majority of the owners were up in arms against the special levies, quite understandably given it was not for the first time. So you can imagine the amount of work done by the EC prior to that meeting to inform, educate and explain the owners what the right decision should be, and then to get an unanimous vote. It’s worth noting that this time the strata had the new (and current) EC, the one elected on the previous GM, which achieved a).

    c) Actioned an appointment of a new strata manager, on a much more transparent, fair, and btw cheaper AND advantageous terms than the one inherited by the current EC. PLUS: successfully fought off an attempt by two officebearers from a previous EC to lodge an absolutely ludicrous complaint against (their own) strata in the local council. Btw, if anyone wants to know how best to handle petty unsubstantiated complaints against OC in a manner that prevents repeat of similar actions, I’m happy to share our experience. Note though, it does require a lot of leg- and paper-work, hence a lot of hours.

     

    Now put all of the above in the context of a strata, where, unfortunately, a majority of the owners are rather passive, to put it mildly. As indication, with the exception of the GM on special levies, we barely had a quorum in the other two, the first and the third.

    Firstly, I would appreciate a general feedback from the forum reader on the situation described above.

    Secondly, I would really appreciate your honest feedback on the following. I have not mentioned one more detail describing our situation. It is huge, it has massive implications and it’s the overriding concern for our strata, and it is sensitive. And it at least doubles the workload on the EC.

    Still, even without that, it should be very obvious that the EC had to put an absolutely crazy number of hours over the last year. We are easily talking about the equivalent of a full time job workload. So we intend to make use of section 25 of the Strata Act. And we think it is more than fair for all parties involved, both the OC and the EC. Please let me know.

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  • #14967

    I think the AGM should be sufficient unless there is a need to raise a special levy, sack the strata manager etc. The old EC here had a GM to raise a special levy to pay the insurance!

    #14983
    Billen Ben
    Flatchatter

      The Chair Man said:

      ……… To explain the exclamation marks, our opponent was (still is) a professional strata manager with multi-decade experience who hired a strata lawyer (!) to file the CTTT complaint….

      My SP would benefit from a degree of management but it is impossible to convince the owners of that and CTTT often do not use s162 when it is actually necessary

       

      I'm curious. If this opponent was and still is a professional strata manager with multi decade experience then what is his interest in having the place put under management if it is not to benefit the owners?

      Is there something we are not being told?

      #15012

      @ Billen Ben:

      Just letting everyone know, I will respond to this. Even though the question takes us away from the two factual things that I asked, it is a fair one.

      Right now I'm in the middle of another 40+ hrs/week stretch on strata issues before our scheduled AGM. Appreciate if you bear with me.

      Appreciate even more if I get at least someone address my original queries.

       

      Regards.

      #15020
      Jimmy-T
      Keymaster

        The Chair Man said:

        Hi all, I'd like to know if anyone is aware about a strata which held 4 (or 3, for that matter) general meetings within less than a year. This is not a simple curiosity question. As you can guess, we are going to have our 4th GM. I read a lot of posts on this forum where decent members of ECs complain about unfair distribution of workload.

        A large number of general meetings being held in one year can be both an indication of a dysfunctional EC or, indeed, one that's doing the right thing to sort out a number of pressing issues.  There are certain things that can only be decided at general meetings – like taking legal action or changing strata managers – and if you happen to have a few issues running concurrently (as many new strata plans do) the worst accusation that can be thrown at you is bad planning for not scheduling them all at the same time (if indeed that was an option).

        There are two ways to call a general meeting – the signatures of more than 25 percent of owners or a simple majority vote of the EC.  The former tends to happen when there is dissent within the strata plan about the way it's being run, the later is usually a matter of required procedure to get things done. 

        The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
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