Dealing with nuisance owners
A recent decision of the Office of the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management sets a useful precedent in how a body corporate or a resident manager can deal with nuisance correspondence from lot owners.
In Tank Tower [2015] QBCCMCmr322, Mahoneys represented a body corporate committee which (together with the resident manager and the body corporate manager), was receiving numerous emails per day from one lot owner.
Adjudicators appointed by the Office of the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management have a broad power to make orders where there has been a breach of the legislation or a breach of the community management statement for a scheme.
With Tank Tower, the by-laws contained a helpful clause that required lot owners to communicate with committee members in a way that did not create an annoyance or a nuisance. The adjudicator indicated this type of by-law is valid and recognised that where the volunteer committee members and the paid non-voting members (resident manager and body corporate manager) have extensive and time-consuming responsibilities, it is appropriate to expect communications from lot owners to be reasonable, respectful, constructive and not a nuisance.
The by-law was breached here because of the frequency of the correspondence – there were often multiple emails per day. The emails themselves were lengthy, demanded responses to issues that had already been resolved and, in some instances, were abusive towards individual committee members. The adjudicator found that an appropriate test was to ask what an ordinary person would view as a reasonable level and content of business communication.
The adjudicator thought it was appropriate to channel all communications through a body corporate manager.
Committees, resident managers and body corporate managers who are feeling the burden of nuisance correspondence have two options.
First, if the by-laws have a provision like the one in Tank Tower about nuisance correspondence, the committee can issue a by-law contravention notice. If that is ignored, an application may be made to the Commissioner’s Office to resolve the dispute.
Second, even if there is no correspondence controls in the by-laws, the adjudicator recognised that it would usually be appropriate for committees to impose restrictions on unreasonable and excessive communications.
The types of limits that the adjudicator thought were appropriate were:
- Correspondence only be by ordinary pre-paid post to the body corporate manager.
- Only one letter per week.
- The letters be a maximum two pages in length and contain a maximum of 1000 words.
- In genuine emergencies, the manager be called by telephone.
- Written and verbal communication be courteous and not abusive or offensive.
If nuisance correspondence is persistent, an application can be made to the Commissioner’s Office. An adjudicator can impose the restrictions in the form of an order. Breach of an order can lead to a fine of up to $40,000.
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