Australia, June 12 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on May 13:

1. The appellant is the owner of lot 9 in a strata scheme in Sydney. The respondent is the owner's corporation (OC) in that scheme.

2. The appellant appeals from a decision which dismissed his application in the Tribunal in which he sought a variety of orders concerning unpaid contributions. He was also ordered to pay the OC's costs of those proceedings. He also appeals from that costs order.

3. The decision was made on 8 August 2024 and oral reasons were given for the decision. The appellant lodged his appeal on 6 September 2024 before he had received written reasons for decision. He requested written reasons. These were provided on 13 November 2024.

4. At the conclusion of the hearing of the appeal on 29 November 2024 we made directions for the provision of further written submissions, including submissions in relation to the merits of the appellant's claims in the Tribunal. We did this after raising at the hearing of the appeal an issue concerning the adequacy of the reasons and the respondent's submission that the appeal should be dismissed even if we were to find that the Tribunal's reasons for decision were inadequate.

5. Subsequently, the respondent lodged further written submissions on 20 December 2024 and 31 January 2025 and the appellant lodged further written submissions on 21 January 2025.

6. For the reasons set out below we have decided that the appeal should be allowed in respect of the costs order but otherwise leave to appeal should be refused and the appeal should be dismissed. We have also decided that we should ourselves determine the respondent's application that the appellant pay its costs of the primary proceedings rather than remit that application to the Tribunal for redetermination. We will make directions for the provision of written submissions in respect of that costs' application, as well as the respondent's application that the appellant should pay its costs of the appeal.

Background

7. Since 2020 there have been disputes between the parties arising from the contributions levied against the appellant. This led to an earlier set of proceedings between the parties in both the Local Court of New South Wales and the Tribunal in 2021 and 2022.

8. The earlier Tribunal proceedings were dismissed by Member Ringrose on 11 July 2022. In that claim the appellant sought relief under the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW) (SSM), including relief under ss 85 and 87 of that Act. There was no appeal from that decision.

9. On 13 October 2022 the appellant paid a judgement debt obtained against him by the OC in the Local Court in respect of arrears of charges.

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/196c2cdee87f5d3ba2281742)

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