building security

leif – I’ve been reading your posts and waiting for somebody more informed than me to advise you about the rules surrounding the operation of fire doors / stairs.

So far as I’m aware though, the doors on each level should be locked on the inside so that residents there can enter the stairway, and doors at ground /street level should be locked on the outside to prevent unauthorised access.

Depending upon your building’s construction date, the specific requirements for fire safety would be shown on the Fire Safety Schedule that’s provided by Council concurrently with a Certificate of Occupancy.

In answer to your question about “who is in charge of changes”, those undertaken on the fire doors can only be determined by way of a Special Resolution at a General Meeting, where ≥75% of those in attendance must be in favour in order for the change or alteration to occur.

So your Strata Manager’s advice was incorrect, in that your AGM was the correct forum for a decision to be made (or rejected) about removing the locks on the building’s fire doors, and furthermore, I believe that the actions now undertaken would be contrary to the rules surrounding the operation of fire doors / stairs.

How to handle this depends in part upon whether you submitted a Motion that was included on the Agenda for the AGM, so could you please advise.

______________________________________________________________

PS – Stratafied’s post arrived as I was typing this, and it should be noted that there can be no “general business” on the Agenda of General Meetings; hence my question about a Motion.

Yes you’re right Jimmy….. I was just being my pedantic self by advising that as “general business” can’t be on the Agenda for the Meeting, and as leif said that he had prepared his question about the fire door locks in writing, I wondered whether he’d actually submitted that for inclusion on the Agenda where a resolution should be minuted and be possibly open to Mediation, or if he’d just been fobbed-off in un-minuted post-meeting discussions.

I also notice that the locks were “removed under maintenance”, which to me implies that they’d be subsequently reinstalled as opposed to being permanently removed.

Anyway, with bated breath…………..

Stratafied – point taken, but as the topic is “building security” I thought that leif‘s angle was that the Strata Manager’s decision to remove the existing locks on the doors to the fire stairs including on the outside of those at street level, thereby permitting access to people who were now sleeping in the fire stairs, had compromised that (building security).

Far from confusing the situation, I thought that the legality of the Strata Manager’s decision to, as it appears, make permanent changes to the common property (locks) on those fire doors and possibly breach the building’s Fire Safety Schedule (as opposed to the rating of the doors themselves) in the absence of a Special Resolution by the O/C was germane to the discussion.

But then I could be wrong – so let’s wait for leif‘s clarification!

leif – with regard to all maintenance items that you’ve written to the Strata Manager about, you need to follow-up in writing to advise that under Sect 62 of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act the Owners Corporation (O/C) has an absolute responsibility to property maintain the Common Property (door locks, garden lights), and that if they don’t do that within 14 days you’ll be lodging an Application for Adjudication Orders to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) in an effort to compel them to do so.

Neither the Strata Manager nor the Executive Committee can authorise changes to the Common Property, and whilst I doubt that a swapping door locking mechanisms from key lockable to latching only would constitute a “change”, the removal of door locks altogether IS a matter that can only be decided by the O/C at a General Meeting, where ≥75% (not 100%) of those  in attendance would need to agree.

I believe that the matter of the fire doors and stairs is relevant, not only to the security of the building but also to the correct operation of the emergency fire exit system, where as your building was constructed in 1971 the requirements of Ordinance 70 of the NSW Local Government Act (1919) would have required all the fire doors to be self-closing and latched (not locked) to exclude draughts, and for the O/C to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the stairs are kept unobstructed.  

Clearly, the consequences of the changes that the Strata Manager has (improperly) arranged to the fire doors could permit a draught to be created within the stairwell thereby allowing any fire to more easily spread to/between individual levels, and allow the people who now gain access to “camp” there and obstruct safe passage – and as Jimmy pointed none of that will matter to anyone until there’s a fire that spreads more quickly due to open fire doors and fleeing residents’ access is obstructed.

I’m loathe to suggest that you involve Council, but as you’ve apparently made an approach already, I think you need to follow that up in writing to request that their Officers undertake an inspection of the fire stairs and the entry / egress doors to access compliance with whatever standards applied at the time that the building’s original Certificate of Occupancy was issued, and to convey that information to the O/C in the form of a Fire Safety Order.

As an Owner, compliance with any Council Order will cost you also (via your Levy Contributions), but I guess that’s the price of safety and security!   

leif – I think one of us is confusing what’s prescribed under Sect 62 with what it is that your O/C and Strata Manager have decided to do, or more correctly not to do.

As I understood your posts, the O/C didn’t Specially Resolve anything to do with changing, altering, or not maintaining the Common Property; they’ve just decided on a course of action, at best by a simple majority vote at an E/C Meeting, and then implemented it!

So as a Special Resolution was not taken at the General Meeting and it should have been, you have the option to seek the assistance of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) to require your O/C to either convene another General Meeting to put a Special Resolution to the vote in order to alter, change, and/or not to maintain certain items of its Common Property (locks, lights etc) or to get on with properly maintaining that Common Property in accordance with Sect 62(1).

A Special Resolution does not require a unanimous vote to pass.

Similarly, if your O/C then succeeds in passing a Special Resolution to not maintain certain items of its Common Property and that decision would affect the safety of the building, then you can again seek the assistance of the NCAT to overturn that decision under Sect 62(3b).

As for the NCAT process, yes you’re correct in your conclusion that an arbitrator would need to be convinced that any decision of your O/C not to maintain its Common Property had an affect the safety of the building, but then from what you’ve described in your posts that shouldn’t be too difficult for you to prove.

I think you need to get on with it – you never know, the Strata Manager and E/C may concede as soon as they receive your written request for the Common Property to be properly maintained, and you may not need the assistance of the NCAT at all .

leif – the O/C of which you’re a part by the way, CAN decide to remove the sound-blocking feature, and even to not maintain something at all provided ≥75% of those owners who bother to attend an AGM vote to do so, but ONLY if that doesn’t affect the security of the building, the structure of the building, the appearance of the building, or the appearance (and possibly therefore the value) of any Unit within it.

So NO, I’m afraid that a properly made decision to do that doesn’t require your approval, BUT you can have your say and vote (against) at the AGM, and seek the assistance of the NCAT to overturn any decision that wasn’t properly made (i.e. by Special Resolution) and to ensure that items of Common Property like the entrance lights, garden lights, and door locks are properly maintained.

It’s a pity that there apparently aren’t enough Owners who feel as you do, and who are prepared to either attend the AGM or to give you their vote by proxy so that the votes of your Committee and their friends can be overcome. That’s not unusual though, and more’s the pity.

I don’t know how you can think that nothing can be achieved by insisting that the rules are adhered to and that further actions are a waste of every body’s time when you haven’t as yet tried what I and others have suggested!

You still have a couple of choices:

1) Write to your Strata Manager and E/C Secretary to demand that they comply with Sect 62(1) and (2) of the SCMA by properly maintaining items such as the lighting and door locks, and to advise them that if they don’t do so, then you’ll be seeking the assistance of the NCAT to ensure that they do, and;

that if they decided to not maintain anything that affects the security of the building, then you’ll also ask the NCAT to overturn that decision as it breaches Sect 62(3)(b)

OR

2) sell your Unit at a reduced profit and let somebody else worry about all this.

Sorry, but this topic has just about been flogged to death in my opinion, and I don’t think that I for one can assist you any further; good luck with whatever you decide to do.