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Is the VCAT owners corporation list corrupt?
I give you 10 facts.
Fact 1. The owners corporation law allows managers to transfer money from the owners pool to their own private bank account. This means if a manager steals money from the pool, the Police will not act, as by the law it’s perfectly legal (OC Act, Section 27)
Fact 2. Due to how VCAT interprets privacy laws, some owners corporations can not even access their own accounts. They are forced to trust the manager.
Why does VCAT & the law refuse to allow owners to access their own owners corporation account?
Fact 3. Managers take the interest of the owners account and pay it to the Victorian Property Fund. From this fund more than a million is paid to VCAT yearly. (Eg: SCA Annual Report AGM 2014 page 18. VCAT Annual Report page 53).
Effectively, managers are stealing the owners money to pay-off VCAT.
Owners know nothing of this.
Fact 4. In 2012, the VCAT President invited managers and their lawyers to meet him on a regular basis. Since this time they have regularly met and discussed how VCAT should run cases. (Eg: VCAT Annual Report 2013-14, page 28).
Owners are not permitted to attend.
So can VCAT’s President be relied upon to protect owners when meeting with the managers and their lawyers?
Is he fair?
Fact 5. The VCAT president himself was involved in a controversial tribunal case against a property owner.
A water company cuts off the water to a property making it worthless. The water company then forces the owner of the property to sell it to them, dirt cheap. When the owner appeals for justice, the tribunal ruled that the water company had the right to do this, and orders the owner to pay all legal costs for complaining.
Yes, it was our VCAT President who represented the water company.
How did he do it?
It certainly appears that the VCAT president deliberately fabricated a mass of evidence against the owner, and presented it as fact to the tribunal. It appears the judges were fully aware of the fraud. Details of this extraordinary case, and what the President and judges got away with, is on the website courtsontrial.com
This is not an official legal website however, if the fraud allegations are false, how could someone openly get away with making false claims against our esteemed VCAT President?
Fact 5. VCAT, with the manager’s funding it, the user group, and the Presidents dubious past, and more, appears loaded with conflicts of interest
So do owners get a fair go at VCAT?
Fact 6. Owners win less than 5% of cases at VCAT (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VCAT/).
Fact 7. This Age article titled “Rip off managers” highlights the bias against owners (http://www.smh.com.au/national/rip-off-body-corporate-managers-stay-registered-20130205-2dwj0.html).
It humorously refers to a manager who was repeatedly taken to VCAT . The manager even admitted charging owners for water supplies to individual car parks. In another case he allegedly took $10, 000 from an owners corporation’s account that had sacked him, because it was summer and he wanted air conditioners to cool himself (Not listed in article).
VCAT continually refused to rule against him. After an outcry he finally he lost a case, and in the article says he only lost because he did not turn up. With this statement, he appears to be ‘bang on the money’.
If VCAT, its president, judges, lawyers or even employees read or hear this, they will act horrified.
“You’re saying VCAT’s corrupt, how dare you… vexatious!
Vexatious is the argument that lawyers use when their crook has no defence. It’s a boring, lazy, cliché defence. It takes no skill, research or effort to claim vexatious, and it appears it’s exactly how VCAT deals with ‘difficult’ owners (VCAT Act, Sections 75, 79, 109)
Fact 8. When VCAT rules an owner as vexatious, it not only dismisses the case But orders the owner to pay all the manager’s legal costs. This can cost the owner from hundreds up to $30, 000, or more. Not only does the owner lose the case, not get back owed money, and be ordered to pay all costs, but the same manager is free to carry on ripping off the same owner
Fact 9. An overwhelming majority of lawyers not in VCAT’s inner circle, despise VCAT for its lack of due process, fairness and natural justice.
A final fact
Fact 10. Lawyer James Johnson, a solicitor and barrister of the High Court of Australia, has openly referred to VCAT as a criminal Star Chamber, and the corrupt nature of the VCAT President and others at VCAT, by name. (http://jamesjohnsonchr.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/all-the-attorney-generals-men-vcat-political-crime-spree-show-trial-j1342011/).
VCAT and its members are just another proud ‘lawyer joke’.
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Even consumer affairs is in on the string, they act as the middle man and pass on the managers pay-off money, to VCAT via the Victorian Property fund.
Consumer Affairs also attends the user meet and apparently they all have a good laugh at how they spin the law at certain owners expense. Civil Claims List. Deputy President. Ian Lulham - what a vexatious ### he is, of course he loves his co-lawyers.
No one cares. This nonsense is par for the course through the legal system. Just look at the infamous family court - how many guys have committed suicide after dealing with it?
Yes - Matt Damon's 'lawyer joke' they certainly are.
What is happening at VCAT is worrying indeed.
The 2014 FAQ for administrators states:
My ABA does not balance. What should I do?
The online ABA has an inbuilt 5% margin for ABAs that do not reconcile.
(ie help yourself to 5% of the person’s money whom you are acting as administrator for, as a consequence of accounting errors– no questions asked). It then states:
If the ABA does not balance within 5%, you will need to go back and check your figures. If, after reviewing the figures, the
ABA still does not reconcile, you will need to provide an explanation in the text comment box provided on the financial summary
page.
(Help yourself to more).
Most worrying is VCAT Special Procedures whereby someone (who maybe homeless and have no known friends or relatives) can have tissues removed from them for transplantation to another person. I wonder what happens to them next.
https://indymedia.org.au/2015/01/14/vcat-special-procedures-organ-transplants-also-compulsory-sterilisations-pregnancy
VCAT members really dislike owners who claim fraud, especially if it's true.
The VCAT Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal is an Absolute Toothless Tiger, a big fat toothless CAT! Their 'members' (aka wanna be judge but without the brains or the legal clout)are incapable of intelligent thought let alone deciphering law! They are also dogs who are always on the side of the dollar, ignoring basic law and contractual terms. They are NOT the judiciary, they are not the law. They ultimately have to rely on the courts to reinforce their 'orders'. In other words they are A JOKE, and only set up to pretend to be the law. The entire semi legal structure and style is frankly a joke- it is only a matter of time that people realise that it is nothing more than a public wasting of our tax money. What use is a ' semi legal' but not really juridical organisation anyway, its an administrative system to allow high paying jobs to useless 'members' that are in fact nothing more than a butt without its powers. When these butts get lost they cower behind their desks, pull faces and bully. When challenged they deny the law and edit the hearing audio. They leave situation untenable because of their lack of care and ability. No one with honour works at VCAT, and those who support it, such as its inhouse lawyers etc, are nothing but another legal joke.
The tribunal is funded by the below
Residential Tenancies Fund
Domestic Building Fund
Victorian Property Fund
Retail Tenancies Fund
Health Boards
Guardianship and Administration Fund
Legal Practice List
If the opposing party pays money to these funds you are stuffed. VCAT follows the dollar. Pay VCAT through the above funds and you literally can’t lose a case.