This article discusses whether committees can enforce approval requirements under body corporate lot improvement bylaws when owners proceed with changes without consent.
Question: Our committee is struggling to enforce bylaws. Lot owners believe the committee has no right to have a say in what they do with the property. Are our bylaws enforceable?
Our body corporate is a standard format plan so lot owners are responsible for the maintenance and insurance costs of the building. Our body corporate bylaw for lot improvements is pretty standard:
An Owner or Occupier shall not alter the external appearance, finish or colour of the building on the Lot nor add to, extend or cover the Lot in any way without the prior written approval of the Body Corporate.
The committee is struggling with lot owners not getting written approval or not waiting for approval and commencing work as soon as the application has gone in. The latest and loudest opinion of lot owners is telling the committee we have no right to have a say in what they do with the property.
As a committee, we invest quite a bit of our own time into researching and trying to make decisions in the interest of all owners, not just the applicant. Also, we have a statutory obligation to uphold the bylaw but is becoming very disheartening when our efforts are wasted.
Is our bylaw simply unenforceable and if so should we remove it at the next general meeting?
Answer: If a by-law has been properly passed at a general meeting and recorded with the Titles Office then not only is it in force, the committee must – not maybe, possibly or optionally – enforce it.
There is a world of difference between a properly decided-upon motion and a group of owners articulating what they think their rights are. If a by-law has been properly passed at a general meeting and recorded with the Titles Office then not only is it in force, the committee must – not maybe, possibly or optionally – enforce it. Your efforts at enforcing by-laws should never be ‘wasted’: remember, by-enforcement is not dependent on the alleged offending party accepting the breach. If you’re not entirely sure if the correct enforcement process has been followed (and to be fair, it is quite a prescriptive process), you may want to seek some legal advice.
If owners feel a by-law is unreasonable, then they have the option to have that challenged in my former Office. Up until that point though, the by-law remains in place and to be blunt, I’m afraid that group of owners is wrong: they are part of a community and the body corporate, via its committee, absolutely has the right to regulate what they do with their property, to the extent it has an impact on other owners or the common property.
Putting that to one side for a moment, do you know when was the last time you had your by-laws reviewed? If it’s been a while, or you have some genuine concerns that this by-law (or any other) is problematic, it might be prudent to consider getting them reviewed.
This post appears in Strata News #477.
Chris Irons
Strata Solve
E: chris@stratasolve.com.au
P: 0419 805 898
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