Complex refuses Vumatel Fibre

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jbaillie

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I am asking for some help I want to Sue my HOA for not allowing Vuma tel to come in and install Fibre and I was wondering what aspect of the law I could nail them on.

The HOA Reasoning is as follows

1. They cut the road we cant allow that absolutely riduculas in my opnion
2. The Fibre gonna mess up our Garden
3. We got old people who dont understand the benifit.

This is so far what I want to Sue for

1. Loss of Value of property as Fibre increases the value of home.
2. Waist of my time as I run an IT business and it will help me upload big files to customer on Fibre
3. Cost saving as Fibre is generally cheaper than LTE
4. Apparently there is another in the ECN somewhere that they may not deny me right of communication and was hoping so legal genuis could offer my some advices.
 
Have you gone to the old people and told them that it raises the value of their house/makes it more desirable?
 
Tell them that there are free grammar lessons only available in HD which is expensive to stream on LTE.
 
Does your complex by any chance already have conduits for phone lines etc? If not does it already have poles for phone lines? In our complex we used existing conduits so there was very limited digging (and even where they did dig it was restored so well you can't see the difference).

The only catch I think is that you have to own the conduits, in some complexes Telkom "owns" the conduit lines but in ours the complex itself had them built etc. Often Telkom thinks they own the conduits, but it isn't always the case.
 
jbaillie said:
I am asking for some help I want to Sue my HOA for not allowing Vuma tel to come in and install Fibre and I was wondering what aspect of the law I could nail them on.

The HOA Reasoning is as follows

1. They cut the road we cant allow that absolutely riduculas in my opnion
2. The Fibre gonna mess up our Garden
3. We got old people who dont understand the benifit.

This is so far what I want to Sue for

1. Loss of Value of property as Fibre increases the value of home.
2. Waist of my time as I run an IT business and it will help me upload big files to customer on Fibre
3. Cost saving as Fibre is generally cheaper than LTE
4. Apparently there is another in the ECN somewhere that they may not deny me right of communication and was hoping so legal genuis could offer my some advices.
Click to expand...

I dont think suing them at the outset is smart because it will make turning them around via persuasion impossible
You can always sue if persuasion doesnt work

The problem with HOAs is
- they have long time comm members that are stuck in the past
- the other members of he HOA (that elect them) are apathetic (except for the old people)


What I would do is
1) Get the HOA Constitution and read carefully the bits about motions, elections etc.
2) Scout your complex - Get like minded people on board. If necessary get one or 2 elected to the comm
3) Look for alternatives
- Are Openserve FTTH coming past. If they are they use existing ducts
- Look at a FTTH / wireless hybrid solution - Bring FTTH into the complex and do WiFi from there (where complex members sign up)

I can think of a lot more. Persuading people is easier than fighting with people
Worse still if you start to fight they wont listen to your persuasion...

I have done this in a suburb ... much easier because houses are freehold
 
Biscuit1018 said:
- Look at a FTTH / wireless hybrid solution - Bring FTTH into the complex and do WiFi from there (where complex members sign up)
Click to expand...

Would this not require some sort of reseller license, and would it not limit the customers to a specific ISP?
 
Slootvreter said:
Good luck with that :D They are only concerned about their gardens and pavements.
Click to expand...
Our cables got pulled through the "drains" and piping/conduit that feeds electrical cables to the buildings.
Buy the gate they lifted about a meter or paving, further they used ducting for the gate systems.
And they lifted about 5m of grass, replacing it afterwards.

But then again I was a super bitch and halted the process a few times. They did try deviate here and there coz it was easier, and then I make them stop. If they could not give me a valid reason for deviating I insisted that they revert to the agreed plan.
They hated me! :twisted:

The cabling exited ground where the electrics come out and then trunking was used to run it up the walls...

All very neat.

Maybe you should offer to oversee the process on their behalf. Often the problem is that the whole fibre thing is very daunting so its just easier to steer clear then. Even if it means making all kinds of excuses.
 
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Venomous said:
Our cables got pulled through the "drains" and piping/conduit that feeds electrical cables to the buildings.
Buy the gate they lifted about a meter or paving, further they used ducting for the gate systems.
And they lifted about 5m of grass, replacing it afterwards.

The cabling exited ground where the electrics come out and then trunking was used to run it up the walls...

All very neat.

Maybe you should offer to oversee the process on their behalf. Often the problem is that the whole fibre thing is very daunting so its just easier to steer clear then. Even if it means making all kinds of excuses.
Click to expand...

The body corporate is mostly concerned with bad reinstatement, and they don't realize that 2 months later, you will not even notice that work has been done. That is, if it has been done neatly, as it was done in my complex.

EDIT: This kind of project will also highlight cases where people 'stole' land, for examples gardens creeping further than allowed, etc etc.
 
jbaillie said:
I am asking for some help I want to Sue my HOA for not allowing Vuma tel to come in and install Fibre and I was wondering what aspect of the law I could nail them on.

The HOA Reasoning is as follows

1. They cut the road we cant allow that absolutely riduculas in my opnion
2. The Fibre gonna mess up our Garden
3. We got old people who dont understand the benifit.

This is so far what I want to Sue for

1. Loss of Value of property as Fibre increases the value of home.
2. Waist of my time as I run an IT business and it will help me upload big files to customer on Fibre
3. Cost saving as Fibre is generally cheaper than LTE
4. Apparently there is another in the ECN somewhere that they may not deny me right of communication and was hoping so legal genuis could offer my some advices.
Click to expand...

Well you're apart of the home owners association no? The trustees might be saying no, but everyone that owns a unit is apart of the HOA and has a say, maybe call a meeting and find everyone that wants fibre and if they out number the ones that don't then by the power of democracy you have fibre, if not in the meeting discuss the benefits and persuade people why it's better, fighting the trustees you elected isn't going to get you anywhere.
Also maybe attend the AGMs to put things like this on the agenda, when I was in a complex I was there for three years solid fighting to get fibre installed, it took a lot of persuading but it did eventually workout, for everyone else as I had moved onwards. It also managed to score me an extra 20k on the sale of my home and the lady who originally protested it managed an additional 100k once it was installed and working.
 
Slootvreter said:
The body corporate is mostly concerned with bad reinstatement, and they don't realize that 2 months later, you will not even notice that work has been done. That is, if it has been done neatly, as it was done in my complex.

EDIT: This kind of project will also highlight cases where people 'stole' land, for examples gardens creeping further than allowed, etc etc.
Click to expand...

Yip,

Now is a good time to lift grass, it will recover quickly.

Your edit: LoL. I've heard of a few of those. And at some complexes it really brought out the bitch/bastard in many people :D
 
Slootvreter said:
The body corporate is mostly concerned with bad reinstatement, and they don't realize that 2 months later, you will not even notice that work has been done. That is, if it has been done neatly, as it was done in my complex.

EDIT: This kind of project will also highlight cases where people 'stole' land, for examples gardens creeping further than allowed, etc etc.
Click to expand...

You mean those few trustees halting the process? Does the rest of the owners even know what's happening or are they like 90% of other owners in complexes that don't actually bother going to AGMs?
 
Lupus said:
Well you're apart of the home owners association no? The trustees might be saying no, but everyone that owns a unit is apart of the HOA and has a say, maybe call a meeting and find everyone that wants fibre and if they out number the ones that don't then by the power of democracy you have fibre, if not in the meeting discuss the benefits and persuade people why it's better, fighting the trustees you elected isn't going to get you anywhere.
Also maybe attend the AGMs to put things like this on the agenda, when I was in a complex I was there for three years solid fighting to get fibre installed, it took a lot of persuading but it did eventually workout, for everyone else as I had moved onwards. It also managed to score me an extra 20k on the sale of my home and the lady who originally protested it managed an additional 100k once it was installed and working.
Click to expand...
Yip,

Any owner can gather others, and then insist on an SGM. However it must be noted that a SGM requires higher numbers than an AGM to form a quorum.
So might be easier to attend a trustee meeting with a few other like-minded persons and then to insist on progress. Or alternatively make sure the managing agent adds it to the coming AGM(most complexes have these in the last 3-4 months of the year.)

Edit:
Do remember at an AGM a trustee's vote counts equal to the vote of another person who has the same size place.
 
Last edited:
Lupus said:
You mean those few trustees halting the process? Does the rest of the owners even know what's happening or are they like 90% of other owners in complexes that don't actually bother going to AGMs?
Click to expand...

Not sure why you are asking me.
 
Venomous said:
Yip,

Any owner can gather others, and then insist on an SGM. However it must be noted that a SGM requires higher numbers than an AGM to form a quorum.
So might be easier to attend a trustee meeting with a few other like-minded persons and then to insist on progress. Or alternatively make sure the managing agent adds it to the coming AGM(most complexes have these in the last 3-4 months of the year.)
Click to expand...

Yup took me quite sometime to get mine sorted out, as initially the trustees that were on at the time were against the digging. Eventually I managed to get some like minded people elected as trustees and they convinced the other 5 people who attend the AGM and fibre was sorted, the few owners who did moan were asked did you attend the AGM (which of course they never do) and it went through.
It still took almost a year for the fibre to terminate outside the complex, by that time I had put my place up on the market as those owners who didn't attend had become quite aggressive, strangely enough they were the ones smiling with being able to now have Netflix when I left.
 
@OP
Why not speak to a few people there. Find out if they would like their property value to increase by 10-20% just by having fibre in the complex. Then explain the benefits of fibre. . .
 
Lupus said:
Yup took me quite sometime to get mine sorted out, as initially the trustees that were on at the time were against the digging. Eventually I managed to get some like minded people elected as trustees and they convinced the other 5 people who attend the AGM and fibre was sorted, the few owners who did moan were asked did you attend the AGM (which of course they never do) and it went through.
It still took almost a year for the fibre to terminate outside the complex, by that time I had put my place up on the market as those owners who didn't attend had become quite aggressive, strangely enough they were the ones smiling with being able to now have Netflix when I left.
Click to expand...

Luckily we had zero issues with regards to this. I recall finding a flyer under my door, and two weeks later they were digging. That being said, I rent the unit, so I would not have been part of any meeting.
 
Slootvreter said:
Would this not require some sort of reseller license, and would it not limit the customers to a specific ISP?
Click to expand...

I don't know but I know of people that solved this easily... so it isnt hard.
I see WiFi as the last resort anyway

Work with others to change the HOAs mind...
There must be people like you...

Old people like Netflix too...they can be convinced.
You need to sell why they want it... not why you want it
 
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