Strata Title Disputes 1960’s Style

Re Steel & Ors and the Conveyancing (Strata TItles) Act 1961 (1968) 88 WN (Pt 1) (NSW) 467

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.

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Quick Read

This NSW Supreme Court decision from the earliest days of strata title about the operation of a small Bellevue Hill strata building that had been converted from company title to take advantage of the new strata title laws.  A dispute soon developed between the strata owners about how the strata building was being operated including complaints about non-disclosure of strata records.  Since the majority strata owner was also the developer, there were also issues about its equitable duties.  Working from first principles, the NSW Supreme Court decided to appoint an independent administrator to run the strata corporation because it considered that the majority owners and committee members had failed to manage things for the benefit of all strata owners.  And it’s a reminder that 55 years later, things aren’t too different in strata title.

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Implications

The key implications of this strata case are as follows.

• Strata committee members were in a similar position to company directors.

• If strata committee members are the developer [or promoters] their duties may be even higher with a fiduciary element.