| From: |
SP52948 owner |
| To: |
info_nsw@chu.com.au |
| CC: |
Arthur J. Gallagher Insurance Broker |
| Subject: |
CONFIDENTIAL INQUIRY: Legal claims by Strata Scheme in 2012 and 2013 |
| Date: |
30/08/13 21:53 |
To whom it may concern,
At this stage this is confidential and
very sensitive information.
Please act
responsibly.
I spoke to member of your staff (I think lady named Vadyja,
spelling
might be incorrect?) on 26 August 2013. My call was in relation
to
obtaining details of an insurance claim that the Strata
Manager
Mr. Peter Bone (Raine & Horne Strata Epping) through
Gallagher
Broking Services [name redacted] finalized in amount
of
$10,517.02 on 4 June 2013.
The Strata Manager and the current Executive Committee
failed
to disclose any information about it to 218 owners so far.
This
is criminally negligent action, especially since the "incident
date"
is 16 June 2012 (a year old). Last time, on the day of the EC
meeting
on 28 August 2013 (two days ago) I attempted to obtain
details
in an email sent to all members of the Executive
Committee
and the Strata Manager. No response was received.
Without going into too much details, the Strata Manager
and
the Executive Committee committed many serious breaches
of
law and various actions are in process to sort it out.
For
the last two years, I have engaged in serious CTTT cases,
and
after lot of investigative work (I have over 3,000 pages
of
evidence and documents), the evidence against corrupt
Raine & Horne Strata Epping and the Executive Committee
is
finally becoming rock-solid. Some of the issues with
Raine & Horne Strata (more details in the two PDF
attachments):
Firstly, let it be known that the
practice of false
minutes of meetings or resolutions that
are
created in non-compliant (illegal) manner
is not unique
to our complex. Raine & Horne Strata
was involved in another
case in relation to a special resolution
that they tried to
revoke in illegal manner last year and
LOST. In that case they
also engaged an expensive Solicitor
(Bannerman), and lost
nevertheless:
BEGIN QUOTE
Owners Corp SP 37466 v Loombah
Investments Pty Ltd [2012]
NSWCTTT 182 (1 May 2012) SCS
11/51344
STRATA SCHEME: SP 37466
PREMISES:
“...” Lindfield NSW 2070
APPELLANT: Owners
Corporation Strata Plan 37466
Raine & Horne Strata
RESPONDENT: Loombah
Investments Pty Ltd
HEARING: 23
February 2012 at Sydney
APPLICATION:
Appeal
APPEARANCES: Mr Bannerman on
behalf of appellants
Mr Cunio on behalf of the respondents
ORDERS:
Appeal dismissed
END QUOTE
Among other cases, previous manager Mr.
John Fry was investigated
for alleged poor maintenance: Archbold
& McGuire v Owners Corporation
[2003] NSWCTTT 10 (21 January 2003) but
there was not sufficient
evidence to dismiss him from duties in
that complex as it was seen
as too drastic outcome of the
findings.
More actions are initiated by me to
ensure that compliance with
the law and contracts are enforced in our
complex in the future.
The ACCC enforces the Competition and
Consumer Act 2010
(old Trade Practices Act), a law which,
among other things,
imposes on sellers a "statutory
condition" that goods and
services must be "fit for their intended
purpose". When
they aren't, it breaks the deal between
the seller and
the consumer.
Among the others, here are the
non-compliance issues that
have been persistent in professional
misconduct by the strata
managers and the staff at Raine &
Horne Strata Epping (that
was reported to their senior managers
last week to verify
if the company is really serious about
fixing the problems):
1. ITSM Strata Management Agreement
number 2671 that
was signed by Mr. Keith Jones and Mrs.
Maureen McDonald on
behalf of the Strata Plan on 16 June 1999
and never
changed or reviewed since
then:
Clause 7.1
The Strata Manager will comply with the
Act (SSMA 1996),
the Agents Act and Regulations including
Rules of Conduct,
as well as the Code of Conduct of the
Institute of Strata
Title Management.
2. The following breaches of the SCA Code
of Ethics
by Raine & Horne Strata
Epping:
Failure to comply with the SCA 1.2
i.
Failure to comply with the SCA 1.3 i. to
xi. inclusive
Failure to comply with the SCA 2.1
e.
Failure to comply with the SCA 2.1
j.
3. Failures to act in accordance with
Strata Schemes Management Act
1996 and Strata Schemes Management
Regulation 2010 on numerous
occasions (too many to list
here).
4. Failures to act in accordance with the
Property Stock and Business
Agents 2002. Sections 32, 41, 104, 130,
171, 207, 212 are examples of
such non-compliance.
5. The strata agency even engaged in
providing false, misleading, or
misconstrued statements to the Department
of Fair Trading and CTTT,
or hid evidence at other times. That is
in direct contravention of:
Crimes
Act 1900 Section 315,
CTTT
Act 2001 Section 71,
Strata
Schemes Management Act 1996 Section 176
6. Among many failures, in April 2013,
Mr. Peter Bone produced
a sworn affidavit which was supposed to
"show" that the Executive
Committee had a valid meeting on 9 July
2012 when they "approved"
the Solicitor's engagement, and that was
proven to be invalid
evidence at the CTTT hearing on 10 May
2013.
7. Due to lack of professional conduct and poor ethics,
the financial
losses to the owners corporation
amount to hundreds of thousands
of dollars over the last 13 years and
I have all proofs of it.
In short, the Strata Manager and the Executive committee do
not
want owners to know about this insurance claim and many other
affairs
in the complex.
On 23 April 2013, a private email was received that gives very
brief
detail of this insurance claim (refer to the Word
attachment).
That is why I, on my behalf and with proxies vested in me,
decided
to contact your office. Sadly, due to "privacy issues"
your representative declined to provide any information. I
tried
to explain that any financial affair that relates to strata
complex
MUST be given to owners as it affects their investment and
that
any insurance claim certainly increases future premiums
and
owners have to know where their money goes. That did not
help.
I also tried to contact Gallagher Broking Services early
today.
I left voice message for Mr. [name redacted] but did not get a
call
back yet.
As a first step, trying to avoid waste of your and my
time,
I am asking for the following documents and
information:
a. What was the claim NH201212589-4
related to? In other words,
which CTTT case()s) is linked to this
claim?
There are interesting issues with Lot
owner 3 (among the others,
a Special By-Law, which approved them
to obtain exclusive rights
to common property at the
Extraordinary General Meeting through
false count of proxy votes on 24
January 2003, was requested
AFTER the owner already made changes,
and did not provide
any evidence about public liability
insurance that was
imposed upon him since
2003.
b. At which legally-convened Executive
Committee or general meeting
the decision was made to engage legal
services for Strata Plan
(there are no minutes of any meeting
that contain information
about it and any legal expenditures
above $12,500.00).
For the record, just in CTTT cases SCS
12/32675 and 12/50460, the
Strata Manager and the Executive
Committee illegally approved
Solicitor's expenses in amount of
$32,661.24. That is undeniable.
c. The name of the Solicitor who was
involved in this legal defense
case for owner of Lot 3 on behalf of
Strata Plan (this
information is also hidden from owners
in the complex so far).
d. Total cost incurred in this legal
defense case for owner if Lot 3
(it is logical to assume that CHU did
not cover all expenses).
e. On what legal grounds does CHU (and
the Strata Manager with the
Executive Committee) believe that
owners in the complex do not have
rights to know about this (or any
other) claim?
f. I also have a request to obtain
full details of all other claims that
the Strata Plan might have applied or
received from the CHU since
June 2012. In other words, has Strata
Plan made any insurance
claim in regards to CTTT cases SCS
12/32675 and 12/50460? If so, they
are ENTIRELY ILLEGAL and I have the
evidence I intend to provide to
your legal team once I get your
response.
Finally, I wonder if building report by Napier & Blakeley
(completed
in July 2012, a year ago) was ever forwarded to you as part of
duty
to disclose all information that might affect the insurance
premiums.
For the record (easy to prove my claim), this building report
that
highlights number of issues was never presented to owners at
any
meeting and was hidden from the Adjudicator at the CTTT Hearing
SCS
12/32675 on 17 October 2012. In addition, two six-monthly
reports for
Fire Protection (January and July 2013) show the lack of
proper
maintenance too.
In short, there is enough evidence to initiate criminal
proceedings.
Before going that way, my duty is to minimize the risks and
waste of
money for the owners in the complex and ensure full
transparency
and duty of care by the Executive Committee and the Strata
Manager.
I am happy to be contacted and provide evidence for
cross-examination
at any time.
We all need to make steps to prevent crime. Nobody is above
law.
Sincerely,