Common property door lock keeps getting changed by one of the unit owners

[Thomas Prufer]

Learn how to pick the lock?

Rappel down to the balcony from above, and use it even with the new lock?

Remove the door entirely, at least temporarily?

Thomas Prufer

[Richard]

Post a pic somewhere of the door and lock.

[543dsa]

No point. No normal door and lock can be made immune to a locksmith changing the lock.

Yes, its possible to make a bank vault door so hard to break into that the cops will show up before the lock is changed, but that isnt a viable approach with a basic balcony door and lock.

[Fredxx]

There is no confusion. uk.d-i-y is a UK oriented newsgroup.

I can assure you that in the UK intentionally placing chalk marks on a pavement is criminal damage. Removing a lock is also criminal damage.

I knew Australia is backward in many ways, but I find it difficult to understand that changing a lock on someone else's door isn't criminal damage in one way or another.

If it isn't then why not change his unit's door lock? Show him what its like not to have access to an area you feel entitled to.

But then we know you're Wodney using another sock puppet and so most likely, given your track record of an antisocial nature, to be the perpetrator in this case.

[Richard]

You're a troll, probably rod speed. Piss off.

[Fredxx]

It is, he let his guard down a while ago. What a useless prick.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You need to increase the sensitivity of your Wodney sensor. I already had this alias killfiled. But if he says something interesting (a monkey with a typewriter) others will comment on it.

[tabbypurr]

bill him for the replacement locks and for loss of use of the balcony. It w ill need to go through debt collection, which isn't quick, but he will lear n that replacing the locks is only going to cost him a lot more than he exp ected. And it much strengthens your legal position.

NT

[tabbypurr]

then someone has royally screwed up on the legal side.

NT

[543dsa]

And have him ignore that bill.

And he will ignore that too.

Not when he ignores the bill.

No it does not.

[543dsa]

Yes, the commercial property management operation has screwed up chasing the unit owners for what they owe, that is why they are being replaced. But that isn't the legal side.

[543dsa]

I asked in the only two DIY groups that have any real traffic. I was asking about DIY solutions to the problem, not for legal advice.

As a matter of

Australia, strata title, which has some similarities to the US condominium system but we don?t have home owners associations here. How things must be done it spelt out in the strata title legislation.

[Marland]

Rod Speed is a foreigner in a foreign country with its own laws.

He must be anxious to be considered a Brit considering the time he spends in UK DIY but as he has admitted to having a German Grandparent he isn?t even of pure British Isles stock who moved down under. A right mongrel.

GH

[Dave W]

Can't you pursuade the block management not to pay?

[543dsa]

But if they don't, no one gets to use the balcony but the miscreant.

[Dave W]

Oh, I thought you meant the management pays for the miscreant. I suppose if they asked him to pay them back to restore the lock, he would ignore them. Do they have any control over him, like turning off his electricity or water until he pays a substantial fine?

[543dsa]

Yep.

No, both are illegal for strata management to do that. Since he is one of the flat owners, that's the problem he can ignore that with impunity. In theory the strata management can use the small claims court to make him pay for the lock changes, and that doesn't involve any legal fees, in fact you arent allowed to use a lawyer, but if he chooses to ignore the court decision, there is nothing that can be done about that. We have never had debtors prisons here.

[tabbypurr]

surely you have bailiffs or the equivalent that can seize assets once a formal process is followed. And debt collectors that can buy the debt and recover it themslves etc. The rest of the developed world has these things.

NT

[543dsa]

Can't be used with decisions by the small claims court. It?s a system that has been deliberately setup to bypass the legal system and that?s why you can't have a lawyer, and that?s to keep the system as cheap to use as possible.

One downside with that approach is that you can't use bailiffs to enforce a small claims court decision. Presumably because that would be risky when lawyers are not involved in the original decision.

But it is trivial to ignore those and they wont buy a debt of $50 for replacing the barrel of the lock anyway.

We do too, but they can't be used for a decision by the small claims court and debt collectors arent interested in such small debts and are trivial to ignore anyway.

[Andy Burns]

Which from reading the bumph

the individual lots should be precisely marked on the plans, so the ownership of the balcony should be clear, and there is a legal entity behind the common parts, so doesn't the legal entity just sue the lock-changing d*****ad?