Popi act and how it can influence future Sectional title meetings

[hellfire]

Yea but this woman has only 3 units of 20 unfortunately her daughter has another and she appoints her tenant to the trustees who can then further hold 2 more proxies using the weight of her role as "caretaker".Half of the other units are rented out .And of the 8 residing residents 4 have the combined IQ of the only natural number not to be positive .

Didn't realise the Sectional Title Act gave caretakers 2 votes

 

[WAslayer]

Very happy I am not in the same sectional title as the OP, also very happy I'll be moving into my new, non-sectional title property..

 

[Kosmik]

Didn't realise the Sectional Title Act gave caretakers 2 votes

Not to my knowledge. It depends on units, not trustees, status etc.

 

[hellfire]

Not to my knowledge. It depends on units, not trustees, status etc.

That's what I thought

 

[quovadis]

Yea but this woman has only 3 units of 20 unfortunately her daughter has another and she appoints her tenant to the trustees who can then further hold 2 more proxies using the weight of her role as "caretaker".Half of the other units are rented out .And of the 8 residing residents 4 have the combined IQ of the only natural number not to be positive .

Trustees are appointed at the AGM. To be eligible to be appointed they need to be nominated by an owner a few days before the actual AGM in writing or being a current trustee who is making themselves available for re-election. At the AGM they will indicate the number of trustees for the year and a vote will be held filling those positions. Only owners (or their spouses) and proxy holders are able to vote for this and from those made available as a pool including re-electives and new nominations.

A proxy is not necessarily held by a trustee - any owner can nominate any person to act as their proxy. This is not determined by the trustee but by the owner at their discretion. So, if the owner entrusts a trustee or someone else that is not your concern.

If you have an issue with the way things are being run then get yourself nominated and elected and be vocal about how you can get things done for the better but remember you still need the support of fellow trustees.

 

[tawdry]

Didn't realise the Sectional Title Act gave caretakers 2 votes

tawdry said:
Yea but this woman has only 3 units of 20 unfortunately her daughter has another and she appoints her tenant to the trustees who can then further hold 2 more proxies using the weight of her role as "caretaker".Half of the other units are rented out .And of the 8 residing residents 4 have the combined IQ of the only natural number not to be positive .

It doesn't say she has 2 votes says she can hold 2 proxies and then she would have 1 vote for herself sorry if it was not clear

 

[isie]

Why do you keep opening up threads on different aspects on the same issue?
I'd like to point something out like it or not, Those that give the chairperson their proxy are either Apathetic or actually agree with the way they are running the complex. I doubt you getting in contact with them will sway their opinion - you not in grade school they adults it doesn't matter what the chairperson is saying to them they can see for themselves if they actually cared.

I'm actually surprised the chairperson actually get that many proxies in the first place - I can hardly get people to fill out a proxy form .

 

[Gozado]

Those that give the chairperson their proxy are either Apathetic or actually agree with the way they are running the complex.

For the most part, I think you're probably right. However, there is a third option, namely that the owners who give a proxy are not well-informed about something. Indeed, it seems to be tawdry's hope that, if only they really did know what was going on, then those other owners might share his/her opinion that things should be changed.

I doubt you getting in contact with them will sway their opinion - you not in grade school they adults it doesn't matter what the chairperson is saying to them they can see for themselves if they actually cared.

Maybe. But they may not even know what the issue is, or that they have a right/duty to care about it.

I once looked at a property which was in a very small Sectional Title scheme with only a very few units. Quite remarkably, those owners did not know that their properties were in a Sectional Title scheme! They each saw themselves as independent. They had raised no levies and had no reserves. They knew nothing of any laws requiring any financial planning, nor could they understand how their common areas (entrances and driveways) and even a servitude, were each other's business, nor had they considered that they might have to deal with one another were something ever to go wrong with the roof or fence. Then along came a new potential owner, who asked about such matters. The others just said: "Oh, well, if we have to have paperwork let's just say that Marcello is our president and can decide. Is that good enough?" I walked away, of course, but I did hear afterwards that the new owner who knew that things weren't being run properly campaigned amongst the others to get their Body Corporate up and running, and to improve the way it fulfilled its purpose.

In that case, it was a matter of education and information, not of major dispute. Those owners could not see for themselves because they simply did not know. And when that new owner, with a lone voice, got in touch with each of them, and spent time explaining, it did, in fact, sway their opinion, very much so, and they put things in order.

Similarly, if tawdry knows something that he/she thinks that the other owners do not know but ought to know, then I can understand his/her wanting to inform them, just in case they come to see his point so that then they, too, may want to change matters.

The part I don't understand is why tawdry could be this frustrated with how things are being run currently, and yet be content to wait and see what happens at the next meeting. I'd have thought that if the actual issue under dispute is serious enough to be worth taking on, then it'd also be worth putting in the effort to find, contact and try to inform the owners before the meeting. But perhaps I'm missing the point...

 

[Lupus]

When I lived in a sectional title, there were 34 units in the complex, every meeting regarding the complex would have 12 people there, out of 34 units there would be 12 people, basically 7 units as some were couples. It was always the same 7 units, of course the owners/tenants who never attended any meetings were the first to moan about how things progressed, but they never attended a meeting.
We even had owners complain why they had to pay levies, until they were cut off from any services offered by the levies. Perhaps Tawdry does need to find the other owners and the ones that are in the unit and start getting things sorted out. Maybe go to the tenants and ask them to talk to their landlords.
I cannot understand how one single person can take over a sectional title like this? What does it actually benefit her? I get a feeling she's got to be making some form of profit out of it, as my wife was a trustee for 2 years and having to do that for free is a pain in the rear end.

 

[quovadis]

When I lived in a sectional title, there were 34 units in the complex, every meeting regarding the complex would have 12 people there, out of 34 units there would be 12 people, basically 7 units as some were couples. It was always the same 7 units, of course the owners/tenants who never attended any meetings were the first to moan about how things progressed, but they never attended a meeting.
We even had owners complain why they had to pay levies, until they were cut off from any services offered by the levies. Perhaps Tawdry does need to find the other owners and the ones that are in the unit and start getting things sorted out. Maybe go to the tenants and ask them to talk to their landlords.
I cannot understand how one single person can take over a sectional title like this? What does it actually benefit her? I get a feeling she's got to be making some form of profit out of it, as my wife was a trustee for 2 years and having to do that for free is a pain in the rear end.

Such conjecture is premature since there hasn't been any specific allegation besides the perceived gaming of control of the trustees board which does appear, at least from what's been provided, to be a bit of a nothingburger. With a complex with such a limited amount of units it would be extremely easy to assess if there has been any impropriety.

 

[Lupus]

Such conjecture is premature since there hasn't been any specific allegation besides the perceived gaming of control of the trustees board which does appear, at least from what's been provided, to be a bit of a nothingburger. With a complex with such a limited amount of units it would be extremely easy to assess if there has been any impropriety.

Why would someone hold on to this position so vehemently without some gain?

 

[RedViking]

Sell and move. You not going to win this battle.

 

[Kosmik]

Why would someone hold on to this position so vehemently without some gain?

Power trip. Lots of folks get off on it who have nothing else in life.

 

[quovadis]

Why would someone hold on to this position so vehemently without some gain?

See Kosmik above.

@tawdry - How much is your levy out of interest?

 

[Lupus]

Power trip. Lots of folks get off on it who have nothing else in life.

I guess.

 

[isie]

For the most part, I think you're probably right. However, there is a third option, namely that the owners who give a proxy are not well-informed about something. Indeed, it seems to be tawdry's hope that, if only they really did know what was going on, then those other owners might share his/her opinion that things should be changed.





Maybe. But they may not even know what the issue is, or that they have a right/duty to care about it.

I get you, many people even if they know somethings is wrong they afraid to say anything.
they don't want to go against what they think the crowd agrees on -

I once looked at a property which was in a very small Sectional Title scheme with only a very few units. Quite remarkably, those owners did not know that their properties were in a Sectional Title scheme! They each saw themselves as independent. They had raised no levies and had no reserves. They knew nothing of any laws requiring any financial planning, nor could they understand how their common areas (entrances and driveways) and even a servitude, were each other's business, nor had they considered that they might have to deal with one another were something ever to go wrong with the roof or fence. Then along came a new potential owner, who asked about such matters. The others just said: "Oh, well, if we have to have paperwork let's just say that Marcello is our president and can decide. Is that good enough?" I walked away, of course, but I did hear afterwards that the new owner who knew that things weren't being run properly campaigned amongst the others to get their Body Corporate up and running, and to improve the way it fulfilled its purpose.

In that case, it was a matter of education and information, not of major dispute. Those owners could not see for themselves because they simply did not know. And when that new owner, with a lone voice, got in touch with each of them, and spent time explaining, it did, in fact, sway their opinion, very much so, and they put things in order.

flipping hell - but ya i get it , it has to start with one person shaking up the status quo

Similarly, if tawdry knows something that he/she thinks that the other owners do not know but ought to know, then I can understand his/her wanting to inform them, just in case they come to see his point so that then they, too, may want to change matters.

The part I don't understand is why tawdry could be this frustrated with how things are being run currently, and yet be content to wait and see what happens at the next meeting. I'd have thought that if the actual issue under dispute is serious enough to be worth taking on, then it'd also be worth putting in the effort to find, contact and try to inform the owners before the meeting. But perhaps I'm missing the point...

No I get what @tawdry is trying to do,
If you in Joburg you can use the valuations search to at least get the owners name ?

https://eservices.joburg.org.za/Pages/GeneralValuations.aspx

 

[Kosmik]

I guess.

Its hard to beleive unless you've actually been in that situation. There could also be dealing financially OFF the books between them for something, that you will never know ie: exclusive use rights etc. The changes would be documented though in minutes etc if kept correctly.

 

[Lupus]

Its hard to beleive unless you've actually been in that situation. There could also be dealing financially OFF the books between them for something, that you will never know ie: exclusive use rights etc. The changes would be documented though in minutes etc if kept correctly.

We had a trustee who managed to screw over the complex, yet when everyone who knew of this left, she's back to being a trustee and probably the chairperson. Because people are too bloody lazy to sort things out.

 

[Gozado]

Why would someone hold on to this position so vehemently without some gain?

Power trip. Lots of folks get off on it who have nothing else in life.

Yes, with gain, monetary (like perhaps renting out what should be an open grassy patch as a parking space, and pocketing the rent) or ego.

A friend had the misfortune to become a new trustee in a complex in which some of the resident owners had lived for over 40 years, and were enmeshed in major ego conflicts. As my friend observed it, if either of those feuding sides could have gone around collecting proxies to tip the vote, they certainly would have - even about issues which were relatively minor in and of themselves - just to annoy the others.

These were the kids of several families who had grown up there, inherited their parents' homes, and gone on to raise their own children there.

He finally found out that, long before his time, when those folks had been young, some had been obedient and mild-mannered, and others a bit wilder and more daring. The naughty ones contructed a situation to trick the less cool kids into trying to smoke, or at least one night they gathered them in a part of the garden and bullied them into holding the cigarettes. Knowing that the parents of the obedient lot would be walking along just then, the naughty ones suddenly ran away, but not before having switched on a spotlight, leaving the innocents sitting on the benches appearing to be smoking.

Thereafter, for decades, the humiliated parties took a kind of sadistic pleasure in opposing any motion that the formerly naughty kids proposed. Seriously? Decades passed, and still squabbling about such nonsense? No move to just free themselves of it?

 

[Gozado]

I wonder whether tawdry is off on an idea of his/her own about which no-one else really cares much, or whether there are ego/power issues involved through the woman who manages to gather the proxies.

If it is some ego-nonsense like set-up I described above, then tawdry, RedViking might well be right:

Sell and move. You not going to win this battle.