Question: Do formal complaints submitted to the council need to be discussed at a meeting?
We wrote a formal complaint letter to our council of owners and received a reply saying it was tabled for the next meeting in a few months. A few days later, we received a reply from the chairperson on behalf of the council, completely dismissing our complaint with reasons that had no bearing on what we outlined in our letter.
We were hoping for some discussion by the council. Can this be done or once tabled, do correspondence, especially complaints, have to be dealt with at a meeting?
Answer: There is nothing in the Act to determine where, when or how a complaint letter needs to be addressed.
There are no laws in the Strata Titles Act WA 1985 to determine where, when or how a complaint letter needs to be addressed. If you have written a complaint letter and provided it to the council of owners, they can choose to meet to address your concerns or reply in a format and time frame suitable to them.
Schedule 1 Governance By-laws Section 9 is titled the Powers and Duties of Secretary of the strata company and the powers and duties of the secretary of a strata company include under section (d) the answering of communications addressed to the strata company. It does not specify the time, manner or response required.
The Act does allow you to raise your motion (ie what you are proposing) at an annual general meeting and have owners vote and/or if you have more than 25% of unit entitlement (ie other owners) in support you can request the strata company convene an extraordinary general meeting.
This post appears in the March 2023 edition of The WA Strata Magazine.
Jamie Horner Empire Estate Agents E: JHorner@empireestateagents.com P: (08) 9262 0400