Litigation Insanity

In 2006, Jim Penman, founder of Jim’s Mowing - now part of the Jim’s Group of companies, the largest and most successful franchise operation in the country - was interviewed by the Australian Financial Review. You can read the interview here.

The interview discussed one of Jim’s guiding business principles - and a foundational one. Always, always, avoid litigation - and that applied both within his company and franchisees, and of course with his customers.

It is to the detriment of Owners in Strata Schemes, that their Committees aren’t always guided by this foundational principle followed by Jim Penman.

There is, in the world of Strata communities, an enormous amount of hostility and unfortunately a resulting large amount of costly litigation. But of course, we’re dealing with humans and all the worst traits and behaviours can and do surface in Bodies Corporate. It takes a ‘wise head’ or preferably lots of ‘wise heads’ to steer a Committee down a better route to problem resolution than litigation.

There are a huge number of Body Corporate disputes that have made it to the Commissioner’s Office. Some aren’t finalised and resolved (to the satisfaction of all parties) at this level of jurisdiction, and end up at the QCAT tribunal. And there are still some that progress to higher jurisdictions of District Court, Supreme Court, and yes, even the High Court.

If you want an example of the sheer lunacy of all this, here’s the details on what was essentially a ‘garden maintenance dispute’ - but the parties got entrenched in their positions, probably fuelled by thoughts of ‘unlikely to lose’.

It lasted more than five years, went through three justice jurisdictions, and ended up costing the Body Corporate a lot of money, and causing an enormous amount of stress - they lost!

But of course there really was no winner, all the Lot Owners paid dearly because their Committee wouldn’t back down, wouldn’t take the ‘Do Nothing’ option. On a gardening dispute.

Here is the link to the District Court's judgement

At over 40 closely-typed pages, it’s a painful exposition of a very sorry saga.

If every Committee was aware of examples such as this, one would hope they’d think long and hard about the better alternatives to resolving such disputes.

We are absolutely convinced better ways can work, and they’re far, far less costly - and with way less stress.

Hynes Legal is one Strata law firm that’s firmly committed to helping parties to explore these better ways.

And there are other legal firms that will assist with mediation - contact us if you need assistance or recommendations.