If you ever have the misfortune to be in a serious dispute with a neighbour – or all your neighbours, for that matter – and one party takes it to Fair Trading, your first stop is mediation.
It could be that you just want somebody independent to explain the rights and wrongs (to the other side, of course) or it may be that both sides of the table are looking for that sort of clarification.
It should be a meeting of minds and a chance to clear the air and offer a compromise. But these days mediation in strata disputes is often seen as an irritating diversion en route to the nitty gritty of a Consumer Trader and Tenancy Tribunal adjudication.
Fair Trading Minister Virginia Judge announced this week that requests for mediation in strata disputes rose almost 10 per cent in 2009 from 1,273 in 2008 to 1,405.
“More than half of annual requests for help are either resolved during that first phone call or the caller chooses not to proceed further,” she said in her Press release. “Of the matters that do proceed, Fair Trading successfully mediates 70 percent, with the remainder adjudicated by the CTTT.”
That’s about 200 pairs of unhappy campers who got to the mediation table last year and couldn’t even agree on the weather. Even worse, some sent lawyers with strict instructions to concede nothing.
And those 1405 complaints wouldn’t take into account strata dwellers who don’t know they can and should pick up the phone to Fair Trading in the first place (like the scores of Flat Chat readers who have written asking for advice on timber floors in recent weeks). Their number is 132 220, if you’re interested.
To mark Flat Chat’s return to the James Valentine radio show on ABC 702 on Tuesday (Feb 2nd) we are planning to mediate a problem for two lucky readers live on air. First of all you still have to be talking to each other and be prepared to state your cases succinctly. Then we’ll let James’ listeners decide who’s right and who’s wrong.
If you want a chance to make history with the first ever live radio mediation, email mail@flat-chat.com.au right now.
Plenty of Stratas go down the notice to comply path now, so mediation is not an option and even talking is optional.
—PeteMediation assumes that both parties approach the mediation in “good faith” – unfortunately this is not always the case. Mediated agreements are not enforceable unless you ask that they be ratified by an Adjudicator’s Order. Even then both parties must agree. If you read the CTTT decisions it is disturbing how many owners corporations refuse to attend mediation. They obviously think it is a waste of time because ultimately Adjudicator’s decisions are made “on the papers” through the submission process.
Mrs H.
JimmyT writes: It cuts both ways – I have known owners who have sent lawyers with instruction not to engage in any negotiation whatsoever. How this can still be called a mediation defeats me – if one party has refused to enter the discussion then they have refused mediation, in my book.
—H. Ackroyd