Shi v Owners Corporation SP 44285 [2017] NSWCATAP 143

Civil and Administrative Tribunal New South Wales Medium Neutral Citation: Shi v Owners Corporation SP 44285 [2017] NSWCATAP 143 Hearing dates: 20 June 2017 Date of orders: 29 June 2017 Decision date: 29 June 2017 Jurisdiction: Appeal Panel Before: F Marks ADCJ, Principal Member S Thode, Senior Member Decision: (1) Leave to appeal refused.

(2) The appeal is dismissed. Catchwords: Appeal – Strata application – applicant did not formulate claim – Tribunal unable to deal with claim because of lack of evidence – leave to appeal declined, appeal dismissed. Legislation Cited: Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 Category: Principal judgment Parties: Guo Qi Shi (Appellant) Owners Corporation SP 44285 (Respondent) Representation: Counsel: In Person (Appellant) A Pogossov (Respondent) File Number(s): AP 17/15678 Publication restriction: Nil Decision under appeal Court or tribunal: NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal Jurisdiction: Consumer and Commercial Division Citation: N/A Date of Decision: 24 March 2017 Before: C Paull, Senior Member File Number(s): SC 16/54321

reasons for decision

Introduction 1. Mr Shi is one of the owners of a home unit in Auburn. On 8 December 2016 Mr Shi filed a Strata application in this Tribunal making a claim against the Owners Corporation. He did not set out in the application any details of the orders that he was asking the Tribunal to make. He named five sections of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 but did not say in any way how any of the sections was relevant to his claim. He did attach a letter which he said set out the reasons for the claim which he made. That letter dated 2 December 2016 referred to a number of matters. These were; 1. The fact that in 2013 the Owners Corporation had fixed a special levy of $1140 plus GST which we know from other material was payable in four instalments every three months. On 25 June 2014 the Body Corporate decided to reduce the levy by not asking for any payment of the fourth instalment due 1 July 2014. Mr Shi complained that he had already been asked to pay the fourth special levy in a notice dated 4 June 2014, and that that notice was never altered. As best we understand the letter it seems to imply that he has been wrongly charged for the fourth instalment and not given credit for it. 2. Mr Shi had been charged over $1000 for "Legal Recovery fees". He said that he had never received any documents or notices about any debt and the only documents he received were regular quarterly invoices from the strata manager. 3. Mr Shi had consulted a financial counsellor to help him deal with the strata manager employed by the Body Corporate and there had been a meeting on 12 January 2016. Despite promises made by the strata manager, its representative failed to give the financial counsellor or Mr Shi any information about payment of the fourth instalment of the special levy and requests for details of legal costs. 4. Mr Shi said that as a token of good faith he was paying $100 per month towards arrears claimed by the Owners Corporation until he could work out whether he owed any money. 5. He intended commencing proceedings in this Tribunal because of the failure of the strata manager to try to work out his issues with the Owners Corporation. He wanted a copy of his records so that he could know how much he owed, he wanted details of the legal fees and charges which the Owners Corporation had claimed and he wanted information to find out whether he had been charged for the fourth special levy. 1. Accordingly, it was necessary for the Member of this Tribunal to read this close typed three-page letter in order to understand what Mr Shi was claiming in his proceedings. 2. Attached to this letter were copies of correspondence from a financial counsellor employed by The Salvation Army to the then strata manager, Strata Management Solutions Pty Ltd. The first letter is dated 19 January 2016 and refers to the matters which have been summarised above and to a meeting which appears to have been held on 12 January 2016. The strata manager was asked to provide information concerning the matters raised so that they could be discussed with Mr Shi. The second letter dated 2 June 2016 indicates that despite repeated phone calls by the financial counsellor to the strata manager no response had been received to the original letter. This prompted a telephone call from the strata manager on 9 June 2016 who said that the accounts staff could not assist in working out the problem but that he would make a further phone call by 10 June 2016 to discuss the matter. No such phone call happened and a further letter of 3 August 2016 from the financial counsellor expressed regret that the strata manager had failed to respond or take part in any discussions. As will be seen, Mr Shi is very angry by what has happened, and in our opinion the failure of either the strata manager or the Owners Corporation to deal with Mr Shi's problems has made the matter and his anger much worse.