Hi. I'm in NSW and wanted to reach out for advice before consulting a lawyer on this issue. We purchased an apartment as owner occupier in a strata scheme last October. The levies were paid for the last quarter, no problem. Come January, I was waiting for a notice of how much to pay as I knew the levies would change being the start of the year, but we received nothing.
Beginning of Feb I reached out to Strata management about the levies with no response. This occurred twice.
Middle of Feb we finally received a notice sitting open outside our front door, on yhe notice it had statement we were $553 in arrears but it didn't state what we were in arrears for (the levy was clearly noted, the arrears were separate). Decision was made to pay the levy and we requested an explanation of the arrears and what they are for, no response.
I'm aware the strata don't have a legal oblation to send a notice so we are happy to pay the late fee in accordance with legislation but they are refusing to explain the arrears to us.
This last quarter we received our notice and I paid the levy, but not the arrears and they then sent us a notice of debt recovery stating that we hadn't paid our levy. This time strata responded saying that the levy wasn't paid because the money we sent was allocated to the arrears, which we still hadn't received an explanation for (I just want to know what it's for and how it came to be that amount). I returned to them stating that the payment is the levy payment. As usual, they did not respond to my last email about this. The notice of debt recovery did not include the arrears so I'm of the assumption that the arrears they are hitting us for don't have anything to do with the levy.
Any advice on this? We went wrong by not chasing this up sooner, however the lack of cooperation from both the strata manager and committee (who also did not respond when I emailed them about it) is very frustrating. They tried to intimidate us into just paying the money which I don't appreciate. Are we in the wrong? I just wanted an explanation for why we have to pay the extra money, I don't have an issue paying it. Our neighbours have also had the same issue.
Appreciate any advice on this matter, king regards.
Beginning of Feb I reached out to Strata management about the levies with no response. This occurred twice.
Middle of Feb we finally received a notice sitting open outside our front door, on yhe notice it had statement we were $553 in arrears but it didn't state what we were in arrears for (the levy was clearly noted, the arrears were separate). Decision was made to pay the levy and we requested an explanation of the arrears and what they are for, no response.
I'm aware the strata don't have a legal oblation to send a notice so we are happy to pay the late fee in accordance with legislation but they are refusing to explain the arrears to us.
This last quarter we received our notice and I paid the levy, but not the arrears and they then sent us a notice of debt recovery stating that we hadn't paid our levy. This time strata responded saying that the levy wasn't paid because the money we sent was allocated to the arrears, which we still hadn't received an explanation for (I just want to know what it's for and how it came to be that amount). I returned to them stating that the payment is the levy payment. As usual, they did not respond to my last email about this. The notice of debt recovery did not include the arrears so I'm of the assumption that the arrears they are hitting us for don't have anything to do with the levy.
Any advice on this? We went wrong by not chasing this up sooner, however the lack of cooperation from both the strata manager and committee (who also did not respond when I emailed them about it) is very frustrating. They tried to intimidate us into just paying the money which I don't appreciate. Are we in the wrong? I just wanted an explanation for why we have to pay the extra money, I don't have an issue paying it. Our neighbours have also had the same issue.
Appreciate any advice on this matter, king regards.
