dnighttime

Also to ancestor. I think you should leave the advice to Jimmy T and the other gurus. Thanks for your effort and intrest in our case but your advice is very confused. You suggested in a previous post that we should have ignored the advice of our family friend who is actually an expert in these issues, a strata lawyer with years of experience. That is not good advice.

She informed us that in her opinion the number of competent tribunal members at the CTTT could be counted on one hand. To get  her firm to run the case for us would have costed between 8 – 12 grand. Considering the competency of the CTTT that is an expensive gamble. She advised us that even if she ran our case the outcome was in no way a sure thing even considering our mountain of evidence.  

She went over our case, explained to us how she would present the evidence, in effect coached us very thoroughly. We lost.  It was great advice to run the case ourselves. We already blew 2grand on a noise report. This would have blown out to 10grand at least if we had hired her and lost. 

To all flatchatters I would not put any faith in the CTTT. We had stat decs, extensive noise diary and a noise report which recommended our upstairs neighbour with the uninsulated tiled floor install carpet with underlay and still lost the decision. All they produced was a receipt for a rug and a hall runner. Absolute joke. We will sell up.

As a well known strata lawyer told us, most of the CTTT are clowns. Be realistic, great if you get the decision you want but don’t expect common sense tp play a part.

Yes we will definitely research the option of appealing. If anyone has had experience in going down this path I would love to hear from them. I read that one of the grounds for an appeal is when the decision is completely against the weight of evidence which this one is. Hopefully a higher court will see some sense.

Again I would like to say thanks to the strata gurus that share their knowledge  on this site. It is much appreciated. In the very least I hope by sharing my story people can see what they may face if they decide to enter the insane world of the CTTT.

Regards,

Hi Jimmy.

I wrote a few weeks ago when Hurstville CTTT ordered us to get an expert accoustic test done on our neighbours place which has tiled floors and no insulation. We just had our hearing yesterday.

We presented the accoustic report which cost us $2000. The report recommended that they either re-do the tiling with proper insulation or put down carpet with underlay as the floor failed the AAAC standards by a country mile although when tested with the rugs it just complied with the BCA’s minimum standard – widely accepted as insufficient.

We also played the videos we recorded of things smashing on the floor, toys rolling up and down and running which demonstrates clearly extreme levels of disturbance. We also presented stat decs of people who had been in the house at the time and experienced the noise as well as an extensive noise diary compiled over months consistently.

We spoke to a lawyer from Makeson d’Apice (a family friend) who said that our case was very good and said that we should have no problem running ourselves.

Due to the financial costs of engaging a lawyer and the advice we received we presented our case ourselves. We left feeling very positive as the other side hardly produced anything except a receipt for a hall runner and a rug they had bought.

We were gobsmacked today to get the decision from [name withheld] in their favour. His decision says that since with the rugs it meets the BCA standard then he accepts that.

This is a gross injustice. What would you do from here? We did not want to engage a sound expert but complied.

He was most uninterested and ignored all our other evidence. He was also extremely rude.

Myself and my partner feel completely at the mercy of the bloody morons we have above who are now aided by an old geriatric CTTT moron. I want to fight this but expect it will be too expensive to do so which means probably we will have to sell our place.

I expect the hall runner and carpet will be removed when I get home today.

Unbeliveably angry, upset and totally disappointed.

Any advice welcome.

I am wondering if it is possible at all to get a sufficient outcome. If she decides in  our favour and that is looking like a big IF what happens if they sell or move on?

We potentially could end up with new neighbours who have no consideration for us. There will still be a tiled floor and we would have to start this whole process again. The mind boggles..

Hello. My partner and I are in one of those nightmare situations where our upstairs neighbours installed tiles onto what is a thin concrete slab without any insulation and we desperately need some advice as we are at the tribunal stage at the CTTT.

Some background:

The neighbours have twin boys who they let run throughout the apartment all day often until 10.30pm or even 11pm on occasion. The running and dropping of toys or people walking around in heels is an absolute nightmare. Their reply to being asked to do something about their floor and to stop the kids running was “bad luck that’s apartments for you.” They have no sympathy for us below and have resisted every request to do something about the floor and to curtail their behaviour. They view us as troublemakers.

We went to mediation and then on to adjudication and produced videos, a detailed noise diary and stat decs as evidence. They were ordered to cover every hard surface or otherwise treat the floor sufficiently to prevent disturbance – a vague order (what a pathetic system!).

All they did was buy a hall runner and put a rug in the loungeroom. which has done little to rectify the noise. We applied for a penalty breach of orders. The first trip to the tribunal the registrar stormed into the hearing room in a grumpy mood and said what are we hear for? He had not looked at our application or read any of the background. when we replied why we are here he yelled at us “what do you want me to do about it?!” we were shocked. The hearing was adjourned because the one of the other parties had not turned up and they had not supplied us with their evidence.

The second attempt at a hearing a different registrar was actually personable but refused to look at any of our evidence until we had conducted professional acoustic testing of their floor and ordered them to give us access to their place. She said she would not put herself in a position to judge the recordings we made because it is too subjective. I replied that there are precedents where other registrars have decided without video evidence that laying a thin rug that doesn’t cover all surfaces is not sufficiently treating the floor, yet she would have none of it.

Now we have heard from a company we have approached that the tap test they do probably wont help us as the BCA acoustic standards are so poor that there is a chance that with the rugs they might comply. We are super worried that if this is the case and the registrar does not take into account our recordings, noise diary and stat decs that we will have wasted all this time and money and have to sell our place. We are not sensitive people, the noise is extremely disturbing. No one would live under those conditions. We would have trouble renting the place out in the current situation. 

What would be our best argument to the tribunal if the acoustic report shows compliance to the BCA standards? We have endured hell getting this far and putting up with their noise the whole time. It broke my heart when the acoustic company told us that their report mightn’t help us much.

Help!!!