Morning Glory Store Upsets this Strata Building over Water Charges [and other stuff]
Coscuez International Pty Ltd v The Owners-Strata Plan No 46433 [2022] NSWCATAP 147
GoStrata’s CaseWatch is a short, sharp and easy-to-understand review of important and interesting Court and Tribunal decisions affecting Australian strata title stakeholders.
Quick Read
This 2022 NCAT Appeal Panel decision is about a dispute in an Ultimo strata title building about the consequences of changes made by a strata owner to split their commercial strata lot into 2 retail shops, the strata building’s refusal to approve a by law covering the changes, and the effect of some special by laws that imposed charges on the strata owner and whether they could be recovered. After reviewing the issues, by laws and NCAT reasoning, the NCAT Appeal Panel decided that the special by laws were not valid [relying on Cooper’s Case], that NCAT couldn’t make payment orders, and clarified how NCAT should consider by law refusals. The decision extends the application of Cooper’s Case to other kinds of by laws about cost and expense recovery to invalidate them, potentially undermining many NSW strata by laws of that kind. It also clarifies how NCAT should consider by law refusals.
Implications
The key implications of this strata case are as follows.
Cooper’s case is the leading authority on by law validity where they restrict or impose obligations on strata owners.
NCAT applications have time limits, which can be extended under s 41.
The reasonableness of by law refusals is assessed objectively from the strata building’s perspective.
NCAT’s money order powers only started after the start of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015.