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The following letter was sent from Regis Towers in response to a series of questions I asked about the alleged ‘scandal’ of tenants having their access keys cancelled because of , they claimed, minor infractions of ‘draconian’ security by-laws. The picture revealed below is aof a building on the frontline of the battle against overcowding in Sydney apartment blocks, resorting to desperate measures in the face of a state government that just won’t help – JimmyT
Please see below responses to your questions from the Executive Committee of Strata Plan 56443.
Why did the OC bring in the over tenanting by-laws?
Large numbers of people were occupying units meant for only four people, (in the case of two-bedroom units) to occupy.
What are the issues with the enforcement of the by-laws?
1. Substantial Health and Safety issues are involved. As in the Bankstown incident with the death of the two young people in the unit fire where it was discovered many people were living in a single unit creating life threatening health and fire issues not only to the occupants of the particular unit but to all other occupants of the building. In the case of a fire, the illegally partitioned units can quickly facilitate an uncontrollable fire from which the occupants may not be able to escape, not to speak of the occupants of the rest of the building.
2. The Owners Corporation has a duty under the Strata Schemes Management Act, 1996 to act to prevent breaches of the development control laws where it is aware of such breaches. Over tenanting is in fact illegal (in case pro over-tenanting proponents like the Redfern Legal Centre may not be aware).
3. Owners are bearing the substantial costs of the over use of the building’s facilities.
4. Other illegal activities are flourishing in the inner city buildings, such as prostitution, whereby large numbers of young women (and, we suspect, young men) are overcrowded into units by their overlord’s/landlords accommodation provided. Drug trafficking is also rife within the buildings. The access cards are disrupting these activities and are upsetting the criminals running the operations. Accordingly, the operators, with the assistance of greedy and dishonest Real Estate Agents are using Government agencies, like the Department of Fair Trading, the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal (CTTT) and, now, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) to break down the access controls put in place by legitimate owners and occupiers of the building. Where people are found to be over-tenanting and/or using units for other illicit purposes and giving access to the building to people who have no legitimate purpose and are caught by the Building Security, the Members of the CTTT are unwittingly accepting the lies set out in Applications to the CTTT and granting urgent Interim Orders against the Owners Corporation requiring the re activation of the access cards to those persons at no cost and for periods of up to 3 months. It is apparent the CTTT Members have no idea what is actually taking place in these buildings; if they did, they would not be making such orders and unwittingly, assisting the criminals running the scams in our buildings. There is a lot of money in it for the criminals in these operations. (There are a large number of young illegals housed in the building. The Federal Police are only yards away from the Regis Tower but nothing is done. It is not hard to imagine why these young illegals end up owing money to the criminal elements and are then compelled to do whatever is required to repay money owed.)
5. Vandalism is common. People who are not owners or stable tenants appear not to care about the facilities and property of the building. Large amounts of levies are expended repairing damage to the building. Facilities such as water, electricity, swimming pools, elevators, etc. are stolen or damaged by these people. It is costing legitimate owners. The dishonest over-tenanting (and otherwise) owners and agents are making substantial amounts of money at the cost of the honest owners and tenants.
6. Safety is reduced with the numbers of strangers entering the building.
7. Substantial amounts of black money are being made by the operators of the over tenanting etc. syndicates.
8. On 23 June, 2011 Ministerial representation to the Fair Trading Minister outlining the problems with the Strata Scheme operations resulted in the 7.30 Report in 2011 or 2012 wherein the Premier, Barry O’Farrell, promised to resolve all of the problems within twelve 12 months. Nothing has been done by the Minister or the Premier to date. (see 7.30 Report)
9. In 2008, the Telegraph ran an article which is in direct contradiction to its article of yesterday. Its article spoke of the problems of over tenanting and the promises from the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore to have her Council Inspectors carry out raids on the over tenanted units. Nothing was ever done to our knowledge.
10. In January, 2014 a meeting took place with members of the Executive Committee of Regis Towers with a Mr French and Mr Sharman from Fair Trading. As a result, Mr French advised he was referring matters to the ICAC for investigation. The Chairman of the Executive Committee subsequently said he agreed with Mr French’s referral to the ICAC and confirmed the Committee’s desire that he so do.
11. The Owners Corporation has received correspondence, in June 2013, from City of Sydney specifically addressed to Regis Towers. The council notes that the scheme is to “use its powers under the Strata Schemes Management Act 1996 (“the Act”) to take action against non-complying tenants and property owners who allow for overcrowding …” (see attached).
12. The Owners Corporation is not receiving any assistance from the CTTT in meeting its obligations under the Act
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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As an actual tenant at Regis Towers for the past 4 years, I can tell you that this card cancelling and extortion has been going on for over 6 months now and it’s disgusting behaviour.
I am personally offended by this letter from the Secretary who is too timid to name himself. This letter implies that as someone who has had a card cancelled, I am either a drug dealer, a prostitute or some other type of miscreant. I also know many other people who have had cards cancelled and none of them are criminals either, it is merely the owners taking the opportunity to recover the costs of maintaining a strata by victimising people who have no understanding of their legal rights in this country. At the peak of this nonsense, card cancellations were earning Regis Towers $13,000 over one weekend and another $10,000 over another weekend. You do the math, is this just the owners doing their honourable duty? I wonder how much levies have been reduced due to these ill-gotten gains? I am certainly not the only resident who noticed the 4 brand new large LED monitors at the lifts in the lobby of one of the towers and no doubt there is a new computer system running them.
Aside from all that, why should we be denied the freedoms and rights afforded to every other tenant in this country, to allow ourselves our friends and family to come and go unharassed and without constant fear of being locked out of our own homes.
I fail to understand how Mr French and Mr Sharman from Fair Trading have determined that Regis aren’t breaking any strata laws when the bulk of the card cancellations to date have happened prior to the new card rules being passed into the by-laws. Any rule that isn’t in the by-laws is commonly referred to as a “house rule” and is illegal. Aside from that, the by-laws used to have a specific clause that covered the lending of keys which said that it was permitted, so the card cancellations were clearly illegal, which is why they changed the by-laws…to protect the money extorted in any future card cancellations.
Going forward however, any owner who has allowed these card cancellations to happen to their tenant is in breach of the NSW Residential Tenancies Act 2010 which clearly states:
“Part 3 Rights and obligations of landlords and tenants.
Division 7 Security and safety of residential premises
71 Changes of locks and other security devices(1) A landlord or tenant may alter, remove or add or cause or permit the alteration, removal or addition of a lock or other security device for the residential premises only if:
(a) the other party agrees, or
(b) with a reasonable excuse.
…
(3) If a lock or other security device is altered, removed or added by a landlord or the tenant without the consent of the other party, it is presumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that it was altered, removed or added by the landlord or tenant without reasonable excuse.
…
(5) This section is a term of every residential tenancy agreement.”I think locking lawful tenants out of their own homes because their neighbours “might” be overtenanting or dealing drugs or selling their bodies is pretty clearly not a reasonable excuse to anyone other than the money hungry Owner’s Corporation.
This means that any owner who leases their apartment and who voted for the card cancellation by-law (at least 75% according to the article here on flat-chat.com about Regis) are in breach of the Residential Tenancy Act of NSW 2010 because they have caused these card cancellations to happen which is in breach of their contract with their tenants and the law. Any owner who leases their apartment and who has not fought tooth and nail (which should reasonably include legal action against the Owner’s Corporation) to have this by-law repealed have permitted these card cancellations to happen which is also in breach of their contract with their tenants and the law.
I am looking forward to the panic and fear being put back on the owners for once, when the owners who let out their apartments start being sued for breach of contract by tenants with cancelled cards.
I can understand how angry and frustrated you must be, perhaps the way the OC/EC has gone about it has not been ideal. If cards were cancelled when there was no by-law permitting the cancellation, then that is wrong. If cards were cancelled in an arbitrary way, with no reasonable grounds, then that is also wrong.
However, I wouldn’t necessarily infer that because you had a card cancelled that means you have been categorised as a prostitute/drug dealer/whatever. It just means that you had your card cancelled.
Re a tenant and their rights under the Act. They are also subject to the terms of the lease (presuming those terms are not in conflict with the Act), and if they are tenants in a strata scheme, they are bound by the by-laws of that Scheme. When you enter into a tenancy agreement you are agreeing to be bound by those by-laws, as they apply from time to time.
I am not sure of how the legal intricacies of this would work, but I don’t think it is simple.
Unhappy…. wrote ” ...Any rule that isn’t in the by-laws is commonly referred to as a “house rule” and is illegal…..” without knowing the details of this particular case it does raise the question of what the status of an intended by-law is where it has been approved at a properly convened meeting but not yet registered; last I looked there was a period of about three years in which to register; is it just a potential by-law during this time, unable to be enforced? If the by-laws are the only enforceable guidelines able to be given to tenants then presumably so.
Yes, that’s right, it has to be registered to be a valid by-law.
A friend has an investment apartment in a company title building – the management committee has a habit of passing a range of rules and introducing charges (imposed selectively) which a review of the constitution indicates are not enforceable at all. Of course, persuading them of that is a whole other matter.
Those landlords who are doing such unlawful acts of encouraging overcrowding, prostitution and drug trafficking should be charged with the highest sentences because they are the ones who are the actual mastermind behind the entire operation. I am certain they are the ones who reap the most benefits too. Another similar situation is occurring in self-storage centres whereby tenants are turning their units into residence even though it is clearly stated in the lease contract that such acts are prohibited by law. Nonetheless, it is not easy to monitor every movement of the tenants because privacy issue might arise if we fix CCTV inside their units.
We know for a fact that Regis Towers Access cards can be duplicated!
Thus cancelling people access cards for a better security or to avoid slumlords, prostitution etc… doesn’t make sense.
The building management is aware, they also know that one of their resident is running an illegal business of access key duplication, the same resident extracted the encrypted security key from one of the Regis towers readers and posted it publicly on an online forum!
The management is aware but did absolutely nothing.
They are happy to cancel cards and get some $ this is perfect for them.
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