JPP

I echo most of the comments made by the others here, in particular about the skills and levels of expertise that are needed to keep a building in good stead. Ours is just 3 years old and has 60 units in a 4 story building, so no heavy maintenance needed just yet.

Whilst not spending 40 hrs and up per week as FDH does, I do spend about 4 hrs/week.

We do have a very hands on Building Manager who does a lot of the smaller maintenance jobs like changing light bulbs and the like, but we only employ him for 10 hrs/week.

This does not give him enough time to keep up with everything that we put on his plate and I have been doing that for the past 3 years. My position on the committee is as Technical Advisor/Secretary.

Occasionally the other committee members say that I should be paid, but that brings about the question of how. I am retired and would loose some of my benefits if I were to receive payments and would need an ABN for the Strata to be able to pay me.

I spoke to our Strata Manager about all of this and he told me that in a majority of cases, where payments are made to committee members, is by way of not paying their levies. This avoids the need for Invoicing by the committee member and Strata requiring that to be accompanied with an ABN. It also does then not become an income for the committee member, but the financial benefits remain the same.

In my case this would work out at about $4000, but equates to about $20/hr. Out BM is paid $55/hr, so less than half the rate, but this doesn’t bother me. It’s a token of appreciation which I’m happy with.

We are yet to bring this matter up at our next AGM where we will have to vote on this. I’m sure that this method of payment must be happening elsewhere, so I’m interested to hear from others if there was a change in attitude towards a committee member after he/she received some remuneration.

Regarding the coding, I did make that a general comment and thank you for letting me know that it didn’t show up on your screen. Now I have to find another way of dealing with this, as you are not the only subscriber to have done this.

I would have been one of them Jimmy :). Just to confirm, when in Visual mode, pasted in text appears perfectly  without any extraneous formatting commands. Be interesting to see how it handles my smiley…

Sounds like you have some very recalcitrant people in your building, but for what it’s worth, this is what has worked for us.

We have been able to control the parking issue by placing a parking notice on the wall for each of the visitors car spots, limiting in our case the parking to 8 consecutive hours. We place the notice below on the car’s windscreen. We also control the area frequently during the day and at night and take photos. From having a completely parked out 12 spot visitors car space during the first 3 months, we now have at least a few spare spots all the time. We do find that new tenants/residents need to be “trained”, but they comply within a few weeks.

REGISTRATION NO:              XXX-YYY                                                                                    DATE OF ISSUE: xx/yy/zz

It has been noted that your car has been parked for an extensive period of time beyond the maximum 8 hour limit in a visitor’s car spot for a considerable number of weeks and is therefore deemed not to be a true visitor.  Note that Residents are NOT allowed to park in a visitors’ spot – your car is registered as belonging to a Resident.

If you do need to park in excess of an 8 hour period for your visitor, please go to our Website http://www.xyz.com, log in using password abcdefg and complete a booking registration.  Once you have made a booking, it is also required that you print a copy of the Approved Booking Confirmation with the ticketed number and place it on the dashboard of your visitor’s car behind the windscreen.

As the by-law of this block states:

‘An owner or occupier of a lot must not park or stand any motor or other vehicle on common property, or permit a motor vehicle to be parked or stood on common property, or permit a motor vehicle to be parked or stood on common property, except with the prior written approval of the owners corporation or as permitted by a sign authorised by the owners corporation’ and ‘A maximum of eight (8) hours is given for any visitor space being occupied’

Please also note that:

‘An owners corporation may take action to remove motor vehicles left on common property that block an entry or exit or otherwise obstruct the use of common property by placing a removal notice on or near the vehicle for at least 5 days.’

This vehicle’s registration number has been noted WITH photo and timestamp. If it is not moved in a timely manner, relevant authorities will be notified and a $1,200 fine can be issued by the NSW Tribunal for the first offence and a $2,500 fine for every subsequent offence.

Owners Corporation         ABC Street, Suburb name