Question: A problematic owner persistently mails the body corporate manager with questions and requests for information. How do we deal with this?
We have a problematic owner who persistently mails the body corporate manager with questions and requests for information. No answer supplied is ever sufficient and every response generates more questions and emails.
What is the requirement of the body corporate manager/the body corporate to respond to emails and requests for records?
Can the body corporate manager charge for the provision of these? Who should the charges be billed to? The applicant or the body corporate?
Answer: The body corporate manager is not the decision-maker on records requests: the committee is.
The first thing you do is not call them a “problematic owner”. It’s a label and does nothing to advance the situation. You may even make it worse by you (and anyone else involved with the scheme) hanging on to that descriptor, even when the owner has a genuine concern.
With that in mind, I’m going to answer your queries in two parts. First, some factual responses to your specific queries and then, a more laterally-minded response.
If the owner is requesting body corporate records, makes that request in the correct form (in writing, with prescribed fee), then the legislation – and adjudicators’ orders – make plain that the body corporate must hand over those records. It matters not how many other requests the owner has made and it makes no difference for what purpose the owner wants the record: they’re entitled to it. An exception might be if legal privilege applies.
The body corporate manager is not the decision-maker on records requests: the committee is.
You can only charge the owner the fees prescribed by regulation, which provides for fees for inspection and copies per page. You are not able to charge the owner beyond that and neither can the committee (there may be some exceptions in relation to downloading records to a hard drive). You cannot, for example, bill the owner for your time in gathering the records. Depending on the terms of your agreement with the body corporate, you may be able to bill the body corporate for your time – just not the requesting owner individually.
Now, the lateral response:
Have you or the committee ever paused to ask yourselves why the owner is acting this way? Is there a medical or other issue at play contributing to the behaviour? Or, have you stopped to consider that perhaps the reason why the owner keeps asking for records is because they think they are not being properly informed about what is going on? I guess what I’m getting at is, do you think there might be a cause to this behaviour which is causing you and the committee grief? And if so, can you think about addressing that, rather than looking at things such as what you can charge and do you have to give the information.
Some further questions to ask yourself: have you or the committee ever attempted a reasoned discussion with the owner to get to the bottom of their concerns (or thought about getting someone to help you have that conversation)? Have you or the committee ever stopped to tally the number of person hours, and associated cost, which has been expended in dealing with this situation? Have you stopped to consider how many other clients you are not servicing because you are spending a lot of time dealing with this person? Is the committee actually getting to all of its other responsibilities, or is all their time being spent dealing with this one owner? I suspect once you do come up with these costs, even if only ballpark, you’ll find the total is considerable, verging on astronomical. So maybe, it’s time to approach it from a different angle and actually try to get to the bottom of things to save everyone a lot of time, money and toil.
I acknowledge there is a lot here to consider. Maybe you will find it confronting to hear me say what I’m saying. Fair enough. It’s entirely possible I don’t have all the answers. What I do know for sure is that I’ve seen this particular scenario many times in many schemes. In every case, when things were left unaddressed and the core issues are not dealt with, the result is a stressed-out committee, a frustrated manager, an owner who will only persist and a scheme which suffers detriment and disharmony.
I invite you and the committee to give some time to thinking about the questions I’ve posed. Perhaps you might see some ways forward.
Chris Irons Strata Solve E: chris@stratasolve.com.au P: 0419 805 898