You may have heard of the television sitcom Arrested Development. It’s about a man called Michael Bluth who tries to do the right thing and strives to keep his family together, despite his highly manipulative and materialistic parents, attention seeking twin sister, socially inept little brother and highly unreliable older brother. And how could we forget Tobias Fünke, his brother-in-law who is a self-diagnosed ‘never-nude’ (which is ‘exactly what it sounds like’).

The Bluths are not the only ones with the capacity for dysfunction. It is possible for a strata scheme to be also considered ‘dysfunctional.’

So what makes a strata scheme dysfunctional? [Hint: it’s not the gymnophobe on your Executive Committee.] If an Owners Corporation is not being properly managed or is no longer functional, then an application can be made to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal under section 162 of theStrata Schemes Management Act 1996, seeking the compulsory appointment of a strata managing agent.

Examples of circumstances in which the Tribunal has made such orders include:

A compulsorily appointed managing agent may be ordered to:-

  1. (a)   exercise all the functions of an owners corporation; or
  2. (b)   exercise specified functions of an owners corporation; or
  3. (c)   exercise all the functions other than specified functions of an owners corporation.

An applicant for an order under section 162 must:

It is crucial that the applicant describes how the management structure is not functioning satisfactorily or provides evidence of the Owners Corporation’s failure to comply with a Tribunal order, or failure to perform one or more of its duties.

The applicant should also list the functions that they want the compulsorily appointed managing agent to have and exercise. The application must also attach the written consent from a nominated managing agent, listing their terms, conditions, fee and license under the Property, Stock and Business Agents Act 2002.

For a copy of the relevant application form, please click here  [Last accessed 28 March 2016]

2 Responses

  1. our strata has been sued 13 times. 11 by one bloke 2 by his next door mate.

    4 cases are still running

    in 2013 the 11 bloke got an order to repair, he didn’t enforce it and did nothing until now.
    now he is suing us. woddayathink? does 106 apply?

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