Question: Residents are dumping rubbish in our strata. If we give a week’s warning, can we engage a waste removal company and then bill the offending resident?
Residents are dumping rubbish in our strata. Currently, there is a large old oven sitting on one garden bed, and another one of our tenants continually stores flammable and corrosive industrial rubbish next to common property.
Strata Management has written to this resident 3 times and they have been told to cease and clean up the mess but rubbish has continued to build over the last 6 months.
Council has been told but will take no action until the waste actually begins to leak. They will send out an EPA officer to observe the cleanup.
Instead, can we engage a waste removal company and then bill the offending resident? We would give them a week’s warning, of course.
Answer: As your example is a clear breach of the articles. You can arrange to have the rubbish removed and then charge the owner for the costs incurred.
Dumping rubbish at Strata Complexes is one of the hardest issues to tackle. We are constantly experiencing issues with tenants constantly placing rubbish on the complex, especially when vacating the property. As for the scenario you have outlined, I believe that you can charge the owners for the collection of the rubbish.
Schedule 3 of the Strata Titles Act, also known as the “Articles of Strata Corporation” part 7 (b) states, A person bound by these articles (this includes tenants and visitors) must not allow refuse to accumulate so as to cause justified offence to others and part 11 (b) states, A person bound by these articles must comply with all council by-laws relating to the disposal of garbage.
As your example is a clear breach of the articles, you can arrange to have the rubbish removed and then charge the owner for the costs incurred. I have outlined the sections of the Act below that you can refer to when sending the notices.
Section 28 (1) states that you can, by notice in writing to a unit holder, require the holder:
Power to enforce duties of maintenance and repair
- To carry out specified work to remedy a breach of this Act or the articles on the part of the unit holder, a former unit holder, or an occupier or former occupier of the unit.
- If the unit holder does not comply with a requirement imposed under this section within the time allowed in the notice, a person or persons authorised by the strata corporation may (using such force as may be reasonably necessary in the circumstances) enter the unit and carry out the specified work.
- A power of entry must not be exercised under subsection (2) unless the unit holder and the occupier of the unit have been given at least 2 days notice in writing of the proposed entry.
- Any cost reasonably incurred by the strata corporation in having work carried out under this section may be recovered as a debt from the unit holder.
Carrie McInerney Horner Management E: carrie@hornermanagement.com.au P: 08 8234 5777