Bodies Corporate and HOAs: Apply Your Rules With Common Sense, or Else
“Good rules make good neighbours.” (Old proverb, updated) The many benefits of living in a residential complex come, naturally enough, with obligations as well as rights. With its innate potential for conflict between competing rights, community living requires a fine balancing act between the individual rights of owners and residents, and the rights of the […]
Fixed Term Contracts: A Guide for Employers and Employees
Everyone knows about the very strong employee protections provided by our employment laws. But we aren’t all as clear on when an employer is legally justified in hiring someone on a fixed term contract basis rather than on the standard “permanent employee” basis. Read on for a discussion of what a fixed term contract is, […]
The Garage Door That Had the Complex Up in Arms
Homeowners Associations (HOAs) and Bodies Corporate take note! A recent High Court decision confirms that you cannot enforce your rules and regulations inconsistently. At stake in this case was an HOA’s instruction to a homeowner to remove his “mirror finish” garage door, which contravened one of the estate’s architectural rules. But, as some damning photographs of other mirrored doors proved, the HOA had seemingly not enforced that rule consistently…