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You say you want them lowered.
Based on what? You just don’t like them?
There may be reasons why they are high. Have you looked at the budgets? Have you examined the Admin fund to see where money is being spent? Have you looked at the capital works budget to see what was spent there?
Have you looked at the 10 year plan for the building to see upcoming capital works which will need funds?
As to strata roll, they are not always accurate in terms of email addresses etc. You may see an owners name but not always much after that.
Interesting discussion.
I run the scheme for a 57 year old block and know full well we’d fail a fire audit. We’re not subject to one unless council suddenly decide to do an audit or someone complains. I know it’d probably just take a apartment block fire in the council area for them to act on all buildings in the area.
Many older buildings have no fire doors, common property fire alarms , extinguisher equipment, and electrical boards out of the dark ages which are a total fire hazard.
You then have the difficulty of raising funds to upgrade the infrastructure. Residents look at their ‘old’ building and think why should I pay higher levies? There’s no pool, elevator, things look satisfactory on the surface.
They don’t quite realise that it’s the behind the surface where the problems are. Where did that $50,000 you spent last financial year go? I cant see it!
The quality of most committees is usually pretty dubious to be kind. I took over from a committee that was represented by an owner who could barely speak or understand English and a chap with Schizophrenia who was more concerned about where he could hoard his next stash of junk to temper his OCD!
From what I have gathered-and I may be mistaken- each individual council in NSW have their own autonomy with fire safety compliance in residential buildings.
One council, ie Sydney City Council, I think requires all residential buildings to be fire audited, but the Inner West council limit it to only certain types of residential buildings.
They can change it with a stroke of a pen, but some residential properties can skate on by with no fire safety infrastructure in place at all depending on what council you reside in in NSW.
And in terms of building insurance, it’s a question that’s never been put to me when the renewal comes up each year.
Whether my particular building is armed to the teeth with fire safety infrastructure or none all all.
I would think that is the owners responsibility.*The OC is responsible for any structural damage to the ceiling and if there was some structural deficiency that needed rectification, the OC would be responsible for restoring it to its prior condition by painting after repair.
If it’s just a matter of cracked paint, then that’s the owners problem.
[*Edited to avoid confusion. JT]
- This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by .
I am a committee of one . I am treasurer, secretary and chairman.
At AGM’s nobody ever turns up except myself.
Is it an issue?
For me the answer is no. I get to make all the decisions without referring to others input.
As owners would know, you have some real idiot owners and they would bring chaos to any committee they were on.
Is it a power trip? Anyone running a committee will tell you it’s more trouble than it’s worth and not worth it if it’s all about power.
The less input just make things more practical and streamlined to run and get things done.
I even put in my own time at no cost to fix minor things around the block to save on overpriced tradies that Strata would no doubt send out.
I think you can transfer the funds but you must restore it back to the Capital works fund within a certain time limit.
I would imagine a strata scheme starts to become unworkable when owners pick and choose when they will opt in or out of levies because their apartment is not part of a particular repair. One day it may all the other owners who will be contributing to a repair on your abode. A cost that could be minor or indeed major & costly. In Strata schemes when it comes to levies and repairs you win some, you lose some.
Either your OC is saying you have cracked paint and therefore that’s your responsibility or that the repair is a mere patch in the structure which they are responsible.
A lot of owners do simple patch job themselves which is not rocket science but I suppose you are legally entitled to have them do it.
I had to organise a repair on cracked common walls but they had a combination of cracks more than 5mm which required helibars to stabilise the structure and patch putty the areas that didn’t need the metal reinforcers. We also painted what was fixed.
Our 1965ish ballustrades are about 100mm below today’s building code height.
This was noted in out WHS report as a recommended upgrade.
My assumption was they would have to be upgraded only if some section required repair and the whole thing would have to be replaced.
I think building insurance also looks at the WHS report when they renew the policy and each year I get asked whether the all the report has been actioned.