Question: What is the pathway for complaints against an owners corporation in breach of the OC Act?
Answer: The pathway is direct and involves the VCAT if an owners corporation is in breach of the Act.
The pathway is direct and involves the VCAT if an owners corporation is in breach. Remember, the owners corporation is operated by the committee and supported by the owners corporation manager. Therefore, you should first confirm that neither of these parties is directly responsible for the owners corporation being in breach of the Act before proceeding to the VCAT.
Joel Chamberlain
Horizon Strata Management Group
E: joel.chamberlain@horizonstrata.com.au
P: 03 9687 7788
This post appears in Strata News #755.
We have new owners who really were elected as Secretary and Member by member just putting up hand. The Secretary and member had majority and experienced chair was on own. Chair attempted to have order and priorities set and voted upon as new secretary was continually sourcing quotes for work, which was not a priority yet, Many of quotes came from persons she knew, Any way The new secretary with th new member was voted as chair and new member voted really himself as secretary, Chair of many years of significant contribution was left in cold,
This majority rule used to disrupt Committee voted in at AGM appears to be disruptive and allowing cliques to elect themselves despite not voted at AGM.
also new chair is a joint owner with parner , Should they have a authority as really they are a proxy?
Hi Norman
Thanks for your question. We suggest you take a look at the Q&As in this article: VIC: Q&As Holding Proxies and Majority Owners – Voting, Conflicts
We have a Body Corporate chair whose husband has become the building manager., We are co9ncerned about the governance structure and how the Building Manager is held accountable
Is this property Governance ?
Hi – we have a committee member who works for his fathers plumbing company and the committee have voted to engage the plumbing company to upgrade the hot water within the building – the price has gone from $582k to $1.2m – the committee members family are gaining financially from this work, which could have been done for half the cost with another plumbing company – the committee have now issued a special levy to owners to cover the over expenditure – which seems to be overpriced and lacking transparency – what can the owners do to stop this corruption / fraud amongst the committee members?
Hi Theresa
Ingrid Goldenfein, Stratabase Holdings has responded to your question on this article:
VIC: Q&A Roles and Responsibilities of the Owners Corporation Committee
Thanks for your question.
It is a little tricky to reply to this question without further information and understanding a little more around the election being rerun by the OC Manager and whether any owners were involved in that decision?
It sounds as though you may have already spoken with Consumer Affairs in relation to this matter and the majority votes, and I would suggest from here that you speak with a specialised OC Lawyer to confirm your next steps.
Two exceptional OC Lawyers in VIC are
Phillip Leaman and
Tim Graham
We have just removed our committee and elected a new committee, however our OC manager then insisted we had to to another committee election based on the the Yes/No vote and not the majority vote (first past the post) to elect the committee members. The first election was on a tick the committee member basis and was confirmed in the minutes with 12 committee members appointed. The OC manager then changed her mind for the Yes/No and reran the election . We had 15 nominations for 12 positions, now we only have a committee of eight as the No vote blocked out the other committee members they no longer wanted on the committee. Is this fair to run a second election after the results of the first election were published. Isn’t that replaying the game if you do not like the side that won. Consumer Rights says otherwise that it is a majority rules. How do we challenge this unfair voting system and this so called new biased elected committee which is now not a fully represented committee?