The executive committees and chairmen of strata blocks get a hard time – usually unfairly since they can’t please everyone and are giving up their time for free. But every so often there’s one who’s on a little personal power trip.
QUESTION: The chairwoman at our block of 40 is a megalomaniac who gathers an embarrassing number of proxies from apathetic owners so she can guarantee her own pet projects are approved. She is supported by a shady strata manager and compliant executive committee.
Meanwhile, other owners who care have been marginalised and silenced and our day-to-day life is suffering. What can we do, please? – Dingbat, Sydney
ANSWER: The easiest way to fix this is to start working towards the next AGM and EC elections by informing other owners of demonstrable problems, such as if their money is being wasted or the value of their property is being harmed.
Proxies from investor owners will be critical to your success so you will need to visit your strata manager to get their mailing addresses and for that you’ll have to pay for the strata manager’s time and for postage.
At the AGM you need a credible “ticket” of candidates who will at least form a majority on the committee. If you can’t fill all the slots you can support the election of some existing members, excluding the ones you don’t want on the new committee.
Then make sure all your supporters have their levies paid up to date and lock in as many proxy votes as you can get.
Meanwhile, try to avoid purely personal attacks; not only do you have to live with these people, you could find yourself on the wrong end of a libel suit.
And be careful what you wish for … some day someone could be writing emails about you.
Dingbat, If yours were a larger block I would say we were neighbours, we have a similar problem with our chairwoman: she spends her time garnering as many proxies as possible, assisted by the OC solicitor who is biased towards the EC, a lot of these proxies are invalid but the Strata Manager doesn’t check them, nor does the EC or the solicitor. The chair refuses to attend to repairs…”you are sponging off the building” and attempts to introduce by-laws to support her. The chair alters common property contrary to OC instructions, the chair has some works done( her projects)……and then discusses the quotes with the EC, after the works are completed. We have been to mediation a few times, which were blocked by the bullying tactics of the bulldozer solicitor….the chair then publishes on the notice board HER version of events and the chair then writes to or phones other owners in the building to say that they ( the EC) WON and that we were defaming her, bullying her, harassing her, that we were vexatious!!So on the battle goes…….
—JohnSounds like our building too (114 lots inner city sydney). Again we have a compliant exec committee who pretty much gets “bulldozed” by one women (not the chairperson),and a weak strata manager. They refuse to consult the other owners and push their own pet projects through, to the detriment of the rest of the building. Recently they decided to change the colour of our building without consulting the owners. Dept Fair Trading tells me this exceeds their authority and a sepcial resolution and proper vote is the only way a colour change should happen. When I point this out to the committee, I get nothing but vitriolic words and stubborn refusal. So tribunal here we come……
—Catherine