My body corporate sux

A friend has bought a unit and she pays lots of money for a bbody corpoarte that does nothing i.e. the pool is never clean and all the gardener does is mow the nature strip. What options does she have?

Re: My body corporarte sux

My old friend google tells me .....

The following organisations can provide information and assistance regarding Body Corporate matters:

Institute of Body Corporate Managers
www.bodycorp.org

Real Estate Institute of Victoria
www.reiv.com.au

Law Institute of Victoria
www.liv.asn.au

Victoria Legal Aid
www.legalaid.vic.gov.au

Community Legal Centre
www.liv.asn.au/public/clc


But personally the first thing i would do is approach the Body corp themselves or even send an annonymous letter threatening to take the matter to the relavent body unless the problem is rectified immediately.

Re: My body corporarte sux

numbercruncher said:

My old friend google tells me .....

The following organisations can provide information and assistance regarding Body Corporate matters:

Institute of Body Corporate Managers
www.bodycorp.org

Real Estate Institute of Victoria
www.reiv.com.au

Law Institute of Victoria
www.liv.asn.au

Victoria Legal Aid
www.legalaid.vic.gov.au

Community Legal Centre
www.liv.asn.au/public/clc


But personally the first thing i would do is approach the Body corp themselves or even send an annonymous letter threatening to take the matter to the relavent body unless the problem is rectified immediately.

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thank-you friend

Re: My body corporarte sux

hello,

please remember your friend is the body corporate, the manager only conducts the decisions of the BC (committee, president etc)

the best thing your friend can do is become actively involved as an owner with the BC, join the committee

thankyou

robots

Re: My body corporarte sux

robots said:

hello,

please remember your friend is the body corporate, the manager only conducts the decisions of the BC (committee, president etc)

the best thing your friend can do is become actively involved as an owner with the BC, join the committee

thankyou

robots

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ok will they re-imburse travel expenses?

Re: My body corporarte sux

Robots,

Shouldnt you be out selling houses on such a fine Saturday morning?

Re: My body corporarte sux

numbercruncher said:

Robots,

Shouldnt you be out selling houses on such a fine Saturday morning?

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FOR SALE ON EXCELLENT BODY CORPORATE THAT DOES SFA

Re: My body corporarte sux

hello,

about to head out in the next 30 minutes

the BC will re-imburse SFA, tell your friend to get involved or sell the property, pretty simple

I deal with it all the time at our BC meetings, owners wanting to do SFA

thankyou

robots

Re: My body corporarte sux

Flying Fish said:

A friend has bought a unit and she pays lots of money for a bbody corpoarte that does nothing i.e. the pool is never clean and all the gardener does is mow the nature strip. What options does she have?

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Had a unit once. It had a "bloody" corp which spent money like it was going out of fashion. Not a good investment so I put a stop loss order on it. Got rid of it quick and let someone else have the problem.

Re: My body corporarte sux

nioka said:

Had a unit once. It had a "bloody" corp which spent money like it was going out of fashion. Not a good investment so I put a stop loss order on it. Got rid of it quick and let someone else have the problem.

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So she should stop paying the sinking fund?

Re: My body corporarte sux

Going to a body corporate meeting can be an eye opener - the realisation that commonsense and sanity are not pre-requisites to property ownership can be a little disheartening.

If they're not rorting the fund, and the costs aren't too high compared with similar properties in the area, and its just an investment property then is it really that important?

If there's specific area's that are affecting the rental yield that can be obtained then speak to the head of the body corporate about whether anything can be done in those area's. (They will then ask you whether you were at the last meeting ... and then you'll realise that you need to go to meetings to have a say. At the first meeting you'll realise that 80% of the owners are either insane, senile or just a general pain in the a r s e and getting them to agree on something as simple as changing a lightbulb will prove a challenge ... and there will be a 6 month process of debating whether to use long-life low energy bulbs or cheap home brand bulbs ... then the manager will hire the most expensive electrician mate he can find to do the actual lightbulb changing work ... about two weeks after its been changed to the super expensive, long-life, low energy, aroma therapy enhanced bulb, it will blow again because there's actually an electrical fault that needs to be rectified thats the real cause of the problem and the whole cycle will start again ... at which point you'll thank your lucky stars that all you have to do is pay that bit of money each quarter and not get involved at all and the only side effect is the pool isn't that clean.

The best thing to do is check this stuff out thoroughly before purchasing though (which is also why, for investment purposes, established, smaller block, well maintained properties tend to be pretty popular.)

Re: My body corporarte sux

Flying Fish said:

So she should stop paying the sinking fund?

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By buying a strata title you have accepted the body corporate and their stinking, sorry, sinking, fund. In some cases the investment itself is a sinking fund. Mine was. If it is get out quick. I didn't get out quick, it took 12 months to sell and the reason, high bodycorp charges. To get out I accepted a block of storage units in exchange, they were a gold mine. All's well that ends well.

Re: My body corporarte sux

nioka said:

By buying a strata title you have accepted the body corporate and their stinking, sorry, sinking, fund. In some cases the investment itself is a sinking fund. Mine was. If it is get out quick. I didn't get out quick, it took 12 months to sell and the reason, high bodycorp charges. To get out I accepted a block of storage units in exchange, they were a gold mine. All's well that ends well.

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I am sorry can you please explain this comment a bit more? My friend is not really up with legal terms ? Thank-you

Re: My body corporarte sux

Flying Fish said:

I am sorry can you please explain this comment a bit more? My friend is not really up with legal terms ? Thank-you

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You seem to have a lot of friends with a lot of problems, Flying Fish.
Did they/you ever consider Googling some of the terms you don't understand?

Re: My body corporarte sux

Julia said:

You seem to have a lot of friends with a lot of problems, Flying Fish.
Did they/you ever consider Googling some of the terms you don't understand?

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Julia, you are funny.
And by the way I still love your dog.

Re: My body corporarte sux

Flying Fish said:

I am sorry can you please explain this comment a bit more? My friend is not really up with legal terms ? Thank-you

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Basically there are "articles of association" which are the rules applying to owners of strata titled property.They are available from the management and should have been obtained by the conveyencer as part of the searches when the property was purchased. They can contain all sorts of rules dreamed up by the body corporate. eg. Ours didn't allow animals, towels or clothing hung in external areas, anything apart from motor vehicles in the underground car park, letting for a period less than 3 months ( and then only through the manager), only boats owned by the occupier allowed to be moored at your (private) pontoon and nothing was allowed to be left on the deck of the pontoon. Plenty of other rules too. I never tested them to see if they were all enforced.