Private owners rights in an apartment complex

Nicholas Shaggy Warship, as a fellow apartment owner, observing work by the management company's outsourced contractors going on......that I knew nothing about.....I totally understand your point. But, it seems, if we don't go to the AGM's, we have ourselves to blame. Harsh as that sounds. (I am now remembering why I stayed away from apartments for decades). However, there are two issues that other posters here may not have witnessed that are relatively new to private apartment living....that you and I are witnessing. Firstly, private companies buying many apartments in a block and secondly, local authorities buying many apartments in a block. It is relatively new, and makes you feel very insecure as a single owner that bought in good faith.....and a risk that I (stupidly) had not foreseen when I purchased.

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Am I missing something here? The PC have only done upgrade work on their own properties, and nothing to anyone else’s/common areas. The proposal to extend that to other apartments has not been acted on, presumably until OCM members get a chance to see/vote on this, what is your issue? Has it actually cost you anything?

Complain to the PC about their tenants damaging common areas, the same way you would complain to a single unit LL if their tenants did it.

Boards of Directors do not call the shots, they serve on behalf of the members of the OMC. Expenditure like to op is referring to would have to be put to the members to be voted on, I suspect what the op is unhappy about is that the PC owns a block of units that can sway any vote. But that is the nature of shareholding, if you own enough, you get to influence decision making. It is up to owners who object to unite and vote against it, if they don’t turn up at AGMs, then they can’t complain that their voice isn’t being heard.

This one of the biggest problems with OMCs. That in theory the directors are supposed to work in the best interests of all owners, but the reality is that they care only about their personal situation.

A development I used to live in but have an ear on the ground to, discovered a material/structural issue with a number of balconies in a certain type of unit. Because nobody who owned one of these units was on the board of directors, they elected not to take the cost of repairs out of the common sinking fund (where it should come from), and instead voted to set up a separate fund and add an extra charge onto the owners of these units only. The balconies were owned by the OMC and not the units, so afaik this was not legal.

Any road, they literally cut the balconies off the side of the building and sealed up the outside doors, to avoid any insurance claims until the repair fund had enough money in it. All because the directors didn't have one of those units, so they didn't give a sh1t.

In a similar vein, all of the units were using bin sheds for waste, and there was always whinging about the waste management charges. It was incessant. Many units are apartments and duplexes (and so have nowhere to put wheelie bins), but the majority are houses. The board of directors, being all house-owners at that time, voted to allow houses to choose their own waste provider, and lifted the cost of the bin sheds entirely onto the apartment & duplex owners. Which increased their fees considerably.

It's one of the reasons I'll never again buy in a development with an OMC. The corruption and pettiness is off the scale. I'm sure a lot of this stuff is in breach of company law, but who is going to do anything about it?

Posted by someone who never served as a Director of an OMC I suspect. Just to clarify, issues with MUDs affect everyone negatively if there are structural problems. In every MUD I have been involved in there is a distinction between units based on size, own front door, design (apartment or house) etc, I would suspect many people think a distinction between those with an without balconies related to the maintenance is not unfair as only those with them enjoy their use, you don’t let your neighbour who doesn’t have a balcony come in and use yours whenever they want, do you?

This doesn't sound right to me. The apportionment of the development budget is set out in the deeds/documents signed at purchase. To change them world require agreement from 100% of the owners. Now maybe the unscrupulous directors ignored that and set their own split, but legally changing how fees are apportioned is next to impossible. We've had countless legal opinions on this that all say the same over the past 18 years.

I was probably too flippant in my language but the directors should have control over what goes on in the development. Expenditure does not need to be approved by an AGM.

In my apartment complex, expenditure over a certain amount has to be approved by an E/AGM (think its 15K). All expenditure has to be approved by the Board of Directors (excluding emergency purchases such as drainage/seweage, vermin). I requested the Mgt Agents, to get a tree trimmed because it was blocking most of the natural light and doing it (because it incurred extra expense) had to be approved by the Directors.

I've had serious run-in with Management Company & Mgt Agents and I got a lot of useful information from the Apartment Owners' Network. Link here.

The Housing Agency also have a lot of useful information including this event on 4 May, 2022. http://www.housingagency.ie/news-events/webinar-owners-management-companies-discussion-legal-reform-under-housing-all

Questions you might have can be emailed to mud@housingagency.ie

If having trouble with the Management Agent, you can always make a complaint to the Property Services Regulatory Authority who licence them. http://www.psr.ie

A threat of making a complaint worked well for me in the past with our Mgt Agent!

In ours we've only ever voted on the annual budget and the directors make any decisions beyond that. We've had 3 (I think) different management agents in 18 years and the only egm we ever had was about bringing in allocated parking and I don't remember ever asking an AGM to approve change of agent or major costs. I've been a director from the start (well as soon as we got our hands on the company from the developer). I've also been involved in the apartment owners network for many years.

It is unusual for Directors to serve more than 3 years on a OMC Board, it is usually limited to that period.

If unit owners can’t be arsed turning up for AGMs, then majority rules. There is a simple solution to the problem, but that would be to assume other owners agree with the op, and disagree with the PC. Again, if I am reading this correctly, works are confined to the PCs units and have not extended to common areas/other units despite being considered for a few years, so there must be a reason why, could it be that more consultation is planned with owners?

Edit: I see in an earlier post by op that this was discussed at an AGM and decision was postponed due to Covid, it is still “pending”.

From my own experience of being a Director for 3 yrs, the biggest pain in the ass was member apathy towards attending AGMs, then answering complaints about decisions made by majority vote.

To be honest, I’m surprised you have been a Director for so long, surely members must be concerned that you may be driving your own agenda. Surely it would be healthy for the Board to have new Directors every few years. I’ve owned properties in a few MUDs and attended a good few AGMs over the past 20 yrs, there has always been a new Board gradually elected over the years.

Read his/her posts again, the works are at the discussion stage, they were discussed at the last AGM, but postponed due to Covid, the decision is pending. The works as is, are only in units owned by the PC.

What this boils down to is that due to owner apathy, the PC will likely carry any majority vote at an AGM and the op does not want to pay for good improvements driven by the PC. This crap happens at every AGM, owners who don’t attend are unhappy with any decision made that costs them money. There is a simple solution, the op should put a flyer in every units letter box outlining his/her objection and asking for support. If the other owners agree, then the fact the PC owns a minority of units means that the majority would block them, if the owners disagree/don’t care, then the op is subject to majority rules when the works are discussed again.