And final details to "stir the waters":

By having inequitable private water and gas usage reimbursements
for selective townhouse owners (typically 18 owners out of 26),
another illegal activity occurred over 15 years and at AGM 2014:

The rights to vote at general meeting is affected by differences
in lot entitlement.

Drastic example for FY 2014:

Townhouse owner of Lot 208, with Lot Entitlement 55,
did not have any water and gas claims and (hopefully) paid
all levies in amount of $5,125.82.

Townhouse owner of Lot 207, also with Lot Entitlement 55,
after getting water and gas reimbursements, contributed in levies
only $4,607.16.

Law says they cannot have equal rights to vote in NSW!

Explanation:

When a plan is registered, each lot is given a unit entitlement, being a
proportion of the total value of all lots in the scheme.

Unit entitlements are used to determine each owner's:

* contribution towards payment of levies;
* beneficial interest in the common property, and
* voting rights on a poll.

It is a standard feature of the laws in other parts of Australia that levies are
based on the unit entitlements. However, a number of jurisdictions have
variations to the standard approach. Victoria distinguishes between
'lot entitlements' (that determines voting rights and a lot owner's beneficial
interest in the common property) and 'lot liability' (the share of the scheme's
expenses that each lot owner is required to pay). Tasmania provides
for 'special unit entitlements' that allows differing circumstances to be taken
into account when setting levies (for example, if a scheme has a lift, the
cost of maintenance and upkeep can be limited to only those lots who use the lift).

NSW has only 'lot entitlements'. Hence, Special By-Law 13
is of no value and breaks all legal voting rights.


On 27/11/14 22:13, SP52948 owner wrote:

Whiles you are waiting for the Minutes of the AGM 2014,
I would like to summarise issues that are undeniable:

Branch Manager did not bring any documents that were
requested as per SSMA 1996 Section 108 on 17 November
2014. The avoidance to provide financials (and other
documents) show the level of corruption and
mismanagement.

None of the tenders that were supposedly run with full integrity
of the EC members were disclosed or provided.

Chairperson failed to declare number of conflicts of
interest and benefits that he orchestrated over many years. To list few:

* Garbage bin collection for himself for 14 years as "personal
service" by the Caretaker, without any other townhouse owner
having same rights until October 2014;

* Private lattice built in front of his townhouse without owners
corporation approval and almost certainly paid from the Admin Fund
(he still declines to answer the details about the expense in
amount of $6,116.20 by Robertson Painting in 2012);
to avoid scrutiny, four other townhouse owners erected similar
lattices. If ordinary person tried to install something on common
property without their approval, the EC would jump to prosecute them,
but not in case of the Chairperson;

* Water and gas reimbursements which he personally enjoyed,
along with other selected townhouse owners. Total personal benefit
 without By-Law and Special resolution in his own bank account amounts
to ONE YEAR OF UNPAID LEVIES. To cover the trails, he rushed
to get owners to "approve" Special By-Law 13;

* General Meetings held in Medina Apartments for many years whilst he
was in business-relation with them. When he was asked about
it at AGM 2010, he pretended he did not understand the question;

* False statements to CTTT to justify his illegal activities;

* Roof insulations for his and other townhouses in 2007, without
owners corporation approval and of significant cost;

* And one that most owners do not know: pergola paintings and
repairs - three times over last 15 years. Pergolas are, as per
all available documents, not registered as common property in Strata Plan
52948! Chairperson knows it but it did not stop him from abusing
common funds to do it again in 2010/2011. Total costs of fixing pergolas,
which are, in accordance with the Land Title, not common property in our
complex: more than $80,000.


Agenda 1: Chairperson failed to list
financial owners who were valid for AGM 2014.
Non-compliance with SSMA 1996 Schedule 2 Section 16.
When he was requested to do so, he declined. When Strata
Manager and Branch Manager where asked to provide
evidence of financial owners, they declined.

When asked to record this breach of NSW Strata law
in the Minutes of the meeting, he bluntly
refused. That was fully supported by Strata Manager,
Branch Manager and thee whole Executive Committee.

However, he admitted that no owner from townhouses
reimbursed owners corporation for illegal payments as
per Special By-Law 13 and that no invoices were sent by Strata Manager
in that regard. That automatically disabled all those townhouse
owners and Chairperson from voting at the meeting -
SSMA 1996 Schedule 2 Section 8 (2).


Agenda 2: As per SSMA 1996 Schedule 2 Section 14, Chairperson
failed to rule the following Motions out of order as they conflicted
with SSMA 1996 Act and were otherwise unlawful:

Motion 4
Motion 6
Motion 7
Motion 8
Motion 14
Motion 15
Motion 16
Motion 18
Motion 19


Motion 1: Minutes and results of AGM 2013, EGM on 4 December 2013
and EGM 2014 cannot be valid because there was no quorum due
to unfinancial owners. In addition, one of the owners sold his
unit on 20 December 2013 (direct neighbour of EC member of the
committee Mr. Stan Pogorelsky) and yet his "vote" was counted
on 8 January 2014. Strata Manager was notifed about this but corrections
in the Minutes never provided (most Minutes of meetings are falsified and
deliberately incomplete).


Motion 2: In spite of around $50,000 being unaccounted for in erroneous,
overcharged and dubious expenses, EC members claimed the accounts were
in "perfect order" because they were done by "reputable strata manager
and audited by reputable auditors". He, however, failed to mention that
none of the serious errors for FY 2013 were left uncorrected and that
explicit trust in auditor was unfounded.

In addition, in spite of promise at the EC meeting in September, in which it
was stated that EC subcommittee would check all accounts for FY 2014,
that did not happen. None of the members of the EC could provide
any explanation or defence in regards to errors in the balance sheet.


Motion 3: When an auditor makes serious mistake year after year, there
was no reason to continue to use their services... unless somebody
in the complex and/or Strata Manager benefits from poorly done
balance sheet.

To make things worse, the accounting figures for water and gas reimbursements
for townhouse owners were completely hidden (for 15th year in a raw).


Motion 4: Vote on Strata Manager's contract failed to satisfy
SSMA 1996 Section 80B and Strata Schemes Management Regulation
2010 Schedule 3 Regulation 4. No details of any other tender for the
contract were provided in any significant or verifiable form.

The answer about other alleged tenders were vague, and
when asked to provide access to them, Chairperson
denied. Members of the EC who were allegedly conducting
the Request for Tender could not remember who the tenderers
were.

In addition, Strata Manager kept charging the following fixed charges
without any approved Schedule of Fees for years:

Tax Information Fee
BAS Information Fee
Bank & Accounting Fees

They are not in any Agreement or valid document for 14 years.

EC, for obvious reasons, did not investigate any misconduct
by the Strata Manager.


Motion 6 and 7: Firstly, these motions did not contain any Agreements
and details of the tenders.

Secondly, details of two other alleged tenders that Strata Manager
"withdrew" were not provided either. Supposedly, Strata Manager
withdrew them to avoid "conflict of interest"!?

The second tenderer was member of staff of Universal Strata Services
until September 2014, in spite of him declaring his wish to bid against
his employer to EC member as early as May 2014. Uniqueco had full
knowledge of the current contract value for Caretaker (I spoke to him
about it last year and he was adamant that $250,000 was too much
for the contract of this size).

Hence, the contract was seriously poisoned by insider's knowledge
and integrity of the process ruined.

When requested to provide full details of the tenders, Chairperson 
refused.


Motion 8: I notified owners that in period September 2013 till at least
June 2014, current Caretaker already decreased working hours of
security guard by two hours, which meant that we overpaid their
services by around $14,000. Chairperson replied that it was
difficult to claim money from somebody who was poor, to which
I replied that our strata plan was not social security office that hands
out money for nothing. Loss of $14,000 from common funds
die not seem to bother anyone at the meeting except my wife and me.

In addition, the contract between Universal Strata Services was
breached due to the fact that for around six months only
one security guard was operating (contract said that minimum
two security guards mus rotate at all times).

Chairperson tried to "gently" persuade owners to vote for Motion 8
(to decrease working ours of security guard by two hours) claiming
that it would save us money (very little in fact because
our security guards are paid around $25 per hour, and there
are no weekend or holiday rates).


Motion 9: I proposed to seek quotes from different solicitors
before making decision to engage them, to which Chairperson replied
that the EC had right to spend $12,500 on legal costs without anybody
challenging them. He actually confirmed that they would not look for
second quote.


Motion 11 and 13: I challenged Chairperson about lack of 10-Year Sinking Fund.
He did not deny that several million dollars in expenses awaited us, but his
timeframe of 10 years from now was completely wrong and falsified
without any backings.

I questioned why owners never received three reports with serious building
status warnings:

Napier & Blakeley (unknown to owners for 2 1/2 years)
ThyssenKrupp Elevators (unknown to owners for one year)
Vertical Transport Management Services (unknown to owners since Feb2014)

Owners deserved to know about audit by ThyssenKrupp
Elevator in regards to risks and replacement of obsoleted or
aging parts in the complex.

1) ThyssenKrupp released their Risk Implementation Plan
for elevators and the cost for dealing with:

* High Risks (rectification required by end of 2014) was
quoted at budgeted price of $149.644.00;

* Medium Risks (rectification required by end of 2016)
was quoted at budgeted price of $20,336.00;

* Low Risks (rectification required by end  of 2018)
was quoted at budgeted price of $99,400.00.

2)  Major upgrade item by end of 2014:

* Lift Car Landing Door Equipment $250,000.00

3) Other upgrade items by end of 2018 came up to figure of
$385,000.00, additional $150,000.00 in the following two years
afterwards (by end of 2020), and additional $200,000.00
within next 10-15 years from 2013.

Add to it exterior painting of buildings (which will be now
fully controlled by the EC without general meeting, thanks
to Motion 16, which allowed them to spend $110,000
over budgeted value in 2005/2006 , of which $43,000
is still unaccounted for. When I mentioned that $43,000
is simply stolen from the Admin Fund as it was not approved
by EC or owners corporation, a good laughter filled
room. I fail to be amused by money disappearing from the
common funds and parties guilty for it even "celebrating"
their illegal activity.

Other major expenses awaiting us:

Roof membranes - for one-half of one building, a single quote
in Motion 15 came up to $53,000 (another large expense
without additional tenders or proof they were conducted in
accordance with SSMA 1996 Section 80B and Strata Schemes
Management Regulation 2010 Schedule 3 Regulation 4

For four buildings (they have to be done because last time that was
in 2005) because they are overdue and continuous leakage problems
are evident, these membranes will cost around $210,000.

Strata Schemes Management Amendment (Child Window Safety Devices)
Bill 2013 - we have (no choice) to implement it by 13 March 2018.

Pavers on the ground between buildings need to be re-levelled. That was
reported in Napier & Blakeley's OH&S document as tripping risk.

14 security cameras and DVR system (they are very old, with poor
quality and need replacements). In addition, due to amount of recorded data,
we only keep around 2-3 days on the disk. All other data is
overwritten after that time. That means a security event that might happen
on late Friday and was undetected until Monday, would stand no chance of
any records being provided from the cameras.


Motion 14: Eliminating SSMA 1996 Section 80A means that EC can spend
any money about "budgeted" or "approved" value for any expense without
getting approval at the general meeting. NSW Strata law still provided for
emergencies so there was/is no legal reason to remove the State's law,
except for one simple fact:

in 2005/2006 EC approved building painting in amount of $446,300 but
final figure was $556,640, of which $43,000 still unaccounted for.
EC members could not deny my claim, but they simply ignored it, with full
support from BCS Strata Management.

Allowing EC to do it without scrutiny at general meetings means blank
cheque was written to them to abuse the common funds, which they
did before very efficiently.


Motion 15: I questioned why was there only one quote for roof membranes.
This was another Motion that did not comply with SMA 1996 Section 80B
and Strata Schemes Management Regulation 2010 Schedule 3 Regulation 4.

The EC cannot be accountable when they even refuse to allow owners to view
financial documents.


At that point it became clear to me that not only the meeting was illegally conducted,
but as well that no action by single owner would succeed without owners
waking up. That will happen, but by that time, all current EC members will be gone
and massive special levies will be the present to those who stay behind.

When my wife and I were leaving the room, huge applause filled the room.
To me it looked like sad bunch of alike creatures who celebrate their
disregard of laws and even being proud of it. One word came to my mouth
and I strand by it: criminals.

In conclusion, none of these things will be in Minutes of the meeting.
That is common practice. I received no documents as per SSMA 1996 S108,
which means every single owner in the complex silently or openly
conducted themselves in con-compliance with the Strata law, and details
of all alleged "fair and open tenders" at AGM 2014 were
undisclosed too.

• Attachments-26/SP52948-Gas-and-Water-Reimbursements-for-Townhouses-1997-to-2014-Summary-Page-AGM-2014.pdf