NSW: Q&A How to prevent one vocal owner from hijacking your owners corporation

This article discusses how to prevent an owner hijacking owners corporation decision-making through excessive complaints and unreasonable demands.

Question: How can the committee manage a lot owner who sends constant minor complaints and unreasonable maintenance requests?

One owner in our scheme sends a constant stream of complaint emails to the committee. In the last six months, they have sent close to 200 emails, asking us to address everything from berries dropping from a tree to vines growing on a fence, as well as various “nice to have” items that our budget simply does not allow for.

We have actioned around 10 of their requests, but the complaints and demands continue. It now takes so much time to sort through and respond to their emails each week that we struggle to focus on more pressing building issues, such as stormwater drainage.

What options does the committee have to manage this behaviour so we can respond reasonably without being overwhelmed by one owner’s constant demands?

Answer: One vocal owner does not get to determine how the owners corporation spends building’s limited funds or volunteers’ time.

It’s very common for strata committees to have one owner who sends a steady stream of emails about every real or perceived problem in the building. It can feel relentless, especially when you are trying to focus on genuinely pressing issues like stormwater drains, safety and long-term maintenance.

The key is to separate what you must do from what you may choose to do, and put some structure around how you deal with correspondence.

1. Start with the legal duty – not every request is equal

In NSW, an owners corporation has a clear statutory duty to maintain and repair common property. Section 106 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 says the owners corporation “must properly maintain and keep in a state of good and serviceable repair the common property and any personal property vested in the owners corporation.”

If the owner is reporting things that amount to damage or deterioration of common property, those reports are useful. They help you identify and meet your legal obligations.

On the other hand, there is no legal duty to say yes to every “nice to have” improvement. The committee can (and should) prioritise expenditure so that limited funds go first to safety, compliance and known maintenance risks, such as your stormwater drains. In fact, the Act recognises that an owners corporation can decide not to maintain a particular item if, by special resolution, it decides that is appropriate and will not affect safety or detract from the appearance of the scheme.

The first discipline is triage:

• Category 1: Health, safety, statutory compliance, obvious damage to common property.
• Category 2: Sensible maintenance/renewal that can be scheduled into your plan and budget.
• Category 3: Discretionary improvements and cosmetic tweaks that the scheme simply cannot afford right now.

Only Category 1 really justifies urgent attention.

2. You are not required to respond to every single email

Strata law expects a secretary (or strata manager) to receive and deal with correspondence on behalf of the owners corporation. It does ****not say that every email must receive a separate, detailed response.

In practice, a simple way to protect your time is to:

Acknowledge, don’t debate: Use a standard line such as: “Thank you for your email. Your correspondence has been noted and will be considered by the strata committee at its next meeting.”

Bundle repeat emails: If the owner sends multiple emails about the same issue, put them together in your correspondence register and deal with the issue once at a meeting, rather than engaging in a running exchange.

Refer back to prior decisions: Where the committee has already considered and decided a point, your reply can simply be: “The committee has already considered this matter and we refer you to our earlier response dated [date]. No further action is proposed at this time.”

Not everything demands an immediate response. If the matter is not urgent and not a Category 1 risk, it is perfectly reasonable to let it wait until your next scheduled committee meeting.

3. Use your meeting structure to your advantage

One of the most effective tools is a regular committee meeting cycle, say quarterly.

You can include a standing agenda item such as:

“To receive, review and determine responses to owner and resident correspondence.”

This does three things:

1. It stops the committee from being pushed into making decisions “by email” on the fly.
2. It creates a fair, transparent process for all owners, not just the loudest one.
3. It allows you to prioritise works in the context of the budget and other building issues, rather than in the order emails arrive.

You can even adopt a simple communication policy and share it with all owners so expectations are clear, for example:

• Non-urgent maintenance requests will usually be considered at the next strata committee meeting.
• Owners will receive a response after that meeting, rather than to each email.
• Urgent hazards or safety issues should be reported by phone or to a specific emergency contact.

4. Could you adopt a communication/behaviour by-law?

If the volume or tone of an owner’s emails is becoming disruptive, one option is for the scheme to consider a communication or behaviour by-law. The idea is not to silence people, but to set fair ground rules around how owners communicate with the committee and the strata manager.

In NSW, by-laws have to be reasonable. By-laws cannot be used to punish someone just because they are persistent or unpopular. If a by-law goes too far, the Tribunal can step in and strike it down. That is why it is important to get proper legal advice before you put anything to a vote.

A well-drafted communication or behaviour by-law will usually focus on things like:

• Requiring owners to communicate in a civil and respectful way, without abuse, threats or harassment
• Nominating a single email address or web form for strata correspondence, instead of copying multiple people on every message
• Making it clear that repeated emails about the same issue may be treated as one request and dealt with together
• Setting realistic expectations about response time frames for non-urgent matters

I would be cautious about very rigid rules such as “you can only send X emails per month” or “your emails must be under X characters”. Those types of limits can look heavy-handed and may be more vulnerable to challenge. It is usually more defensible to regulate behaviour and processes rather than cap the sheer number of times someone is allowed to contact the committee.

If your scheme adopts a by-law like this and the owner continues to ignore it, the committee then has a structured path to follow. That can include issuing a notice to comply and, if necessary, seeking orders from the Tribunal. Even if you never reach that point, having a clear, reasonable by-law in place often helps reset expectations and gives the committee a solid footing when dealing with a difficult correspondent.

5. Internal protocols before legal escalation

Before you spend money on lawyers and by-laws, there is a lot you can do internally:

• Decide that only one person (usually the secretary or strata manager) will respond to owner emails.
• Agree that non-urgent matters are decided only at meetings, not through back-and-forth email chains.
• Use standard template replies, as mentioned above, so you are not drafting from scratch every week.
• Keep a correspondence register so that, if things ever escalate, you can show that the committee has consistently acknowledged emails and made rational decisions.

This alone often takes the “heat” out of the situation because the owner stops getting drawn into reactive exchanges.

6. When the behaviour crosses the line

Occasionally, the volume or tone of correspondence can reach a point where it affects other residents’ quiet enjoyment or becomes harassing or abusive. At that stage, you might be looking at:

• A politely firm letter from the strata manager setting out boundaries.
• Internal dispute resolution or mediation through the Fair Trading office.
• In serious cases, Tribunal orders relating to nuisance or unreasonable interference with others’ use and enjoyment of their lots or the common property.

That is where specific legal advice is important, because each case turns on its own facts.

7. Big picture

The most important thing is that your committee stays in control of its agenda. One vocal owner does not get to determine how the building’s limited funds or the volunteers’ time are spent.

You have a duty to maintain common property, a responsibility to spend levies sensibly, and a right to set reasonable processes for how you deal with correspondence. If you can:

• triage issues properly,
• communicate your process clearly,
• avoid getting pulled into constant email tennis, and
• put good by-laws and policies around behaviour where needed,

Then, even a very persistent correspondent becomes manageable. You are there to run a building, not to live in someone else’s inbox.

Tim Sara
Strata Choice
E: tsara@stratachoice.com.au
P: 1300 322 213

This post appears in Strata News #772.

Have a question or something to add to the article? Leave a comment below.

Read next:

• NSW: Owner in the Minority Controls Owners Corporation
• NSW: Q&A When the Committee isn’t Acting Appropriately
• NSW Dispute Resolution: 6 Tips For Conflict Management

Visit our Strata Committee Concerns, Strata By-Laws and Legislation OR NSW Strata Legislation.

Looking for strata information concerning your state? For state-specific strata information, take a look here.

After a free PDF of this article? Log into your existing LookUpStrata Account to download the printable file. Not a member? Simple – join for free on our Registration page.