Belvue Apartments Crosslease 93132

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Update Prior to AGM 2014

Admittedly, the majority of voting owners at the 2013 AGM made up their minds who to trust and who not to trust with being in charge at the steering wheel of our crosslease. I don't have an issue with that. You are free to have whatever opinion you like. I'm more concerned with facts than opinions and this is the reason you find practically every claim on this web site cross-referenced with independently verifiable quotes, dates, numbers, source documents and third-party web links. If you don't trust me, you are free to check the facts yourself.

Being at the steering wheel comes with responsibilities attached and it is in my view important to hold those in power accountable for their actions. I have been on the "inside" of the Owners Committee and yet have encountered massive obstuctions in my attempts to get to the truth of some dealings. They are well-documented in the main documents on this site and the password-protected document archive. Now that I'm on the outside of the Owners Committee, it's practically impossible to get any real information rather than spin.

If you have been attending the 2013 AGM, then you know that the newly appointed Owners Committee has made promises to deal with some open questions of that AGM. I have documented the current answers and their shortcomings on the various "Current Matters" pages of this web site under the heading "2013 AGM update". On Tuesday, 21.10.2014, I visited BCA and spoke briefly with Alana Augustino (our primary contact person) to request an update. I was informed, since the 2013 AGM the Owners Committee had actually only a single meeting (on 1.9.14) and from her recollection, none of the issues raised by me were discussed. I was surprised (well, not *really*) to hear that, but Alana added: "Graham has been away a lot this year". When I asked for a copy of the meeting minutes, she said, she can't release them to me until they have been approved by Graham. I also asked specifically, that the "full" accounts (including the cashflow spreadsheet) be distributed 2 weeks prior to the 2014 AGM, but Alana said, it's usually just the summary tables and not the details that will be released. In reality, without the details, the summary pages cannot be verified and the historical record shows that our accounts have errors most of the time, often even after being audited.

The picture that is emerging is clear: even though the AGM has elected 5 Owners to serve on the Owners Committee, those 5 Owners seem to agree to just follow their chief, as Warrick Smith suggested and as I sharply criticised in my extensive discussion paper. De facto, this cross-lease really seems to be just a one-man show now! If that one man is busy with other matters, nothing gets done.

And if you believe, this is perfectly fine, because Graham Smith had been more or less "in charge" of our crosslease over the last 19 years and you haven't recognised any major problems, then think again. Graham has been in charge as director for a group of companies, which has been in receivership over the last 4 years, with spectacular losses to more than 40 companies and individuals. The summary is on this sharkpatrol web-page, with links to a newspaper article and original documents filed with the NZ Companies Office. There is no doubt this is the same "Ronald Graham Smith" as in our crosslease, even though "Smith" is a common name and the practice of hiding behind accountant's post office addresses is widespread. You can cross-check his handwritten signature on our just released 2013/2014 accounts against his signature on record with the NZ companies office. Both signatures match. What's documented in the final Receiver's Report from May 2014, is all too common in shonky business dealings: under-capitalised subsidiary companies are used to protect assets of the parent company and when times turn bad, all unsecured creditors end up empty-handed.

Meanwhile, while Graham seems busy with other things, his own AGM 2013 promise to investigate and resolve the Car Park issue remains unfulfilled. Of course, he personally profits financially from his own delays. On the matter of Manager pay, his own statement, that "only previously approved increases and back-pay" were paid out, can now be assessed with certainty to be patently untrue. Anyone with accounting knowledge can see the facts. While being the best-informed person on Auckland rental values through his former job as city office manager at Barfoot & Thompson, our financial accounts had the rental value of our caretaker flat massively misrepresented, until I exposed it through our Auditor. And there is still more to be exposed ...

Please ask yourself, what actions and inactions YOU are supporting through your attendance or proxy vote at the Annual General Meeting.

Preparations for AGM 2014

After receiving the AGM invitation, I've notified Alana at BCA on 17.11.14, as requested under AGM agenda item 10, with 4 specific requests. That e-mail was also cc'd to the last known addresses of Committee members for speedy delivery.

3 of those requests are quoted in the "AGM 2014 Update" sections of the Wall, Manager pay and Gardening pages, the 4th request was to move agenda item 3 (Consideration of appointment of an Owners' Committee) to "the *end* of the agenda, *after* the AGM had an opportunity to review and question the work that was done (or not done) by the current committee."

Initial Posting of October 2013

Sleepwalking directionless?

People become members of our crosslease, when they buy an apartment in our building. For the average owner it's not easy to fully understand the relationships between an individual owner, the Crosslease itself, the Owners Committee, Body Corporate Administration and the Building Manager. Even community-minded people with enough initiative to join the Owners Committee do not always fully understand how it's supposed to work. The Annual General Meetings and Owners Committee Meetings have been following an established pattern of unquestioned routines for many years, with most participants simply assuming everything must be fine. Public engagement is mostly limited to a 1 hour AGM for the general public and 3 or 4 one-hour meetings for Owners Committee members per year. These meetings usually center around looking at the accounts and minutes of the previous meeting and maybe discussing one or two maintenance matters. No systematic review of the work done (or failed to be done) on behalf of our crosslease has ever happened within the last decade.

In the area of accounting, there have been significant issues in the past. I have taken a critical stance here to make sure, our accounts represent our financial reality and I'm not happy about the continuing low quality of the accounts produced by BCA. Just prior to our 2009 AGM, I discovered that we have been overcharged by more than $20,000.00 by our painting contractor PMS. This was reluctantly admitted by Baula Beaton (BCA) at that AGM, but when BCA tried to sort it out with PMS directly, BCA failed to take into account any accumulated interest on the base payments, effectively failing to act in the best interest of their customer: us. It took me countless e-mails over 2 years to get BCA to the point when they finally re-claimed over $9,000.00 in accumulated interest for our crosslease in November 2011.

Another significant accounting issue occured when our 2011 accounts were deliberately manipulated by a BCA employee. The issue is documented here. It is in this context that two fundamentally different viewpoints over the role of the Owners Committee emerged.

Just follow the leader?

The first was formulated by Warrick Smith, when he sensed the potentially damaging nature of uncovering unconvenient truths. I call it the Chief and Indians model, using Warrick's original words. Here is how Warrick Smith introduced his vision for our crosslease. It is the only e-mail I publish outside the password-protected archive file. Not publishing it here on the generally accessible area of this web site would be an omission that would make the rest of the site lack context. While this contribution has lots of colourful adjectives, it is largely a political statement of loyalty to a person rather than a critical examination of facts.

Wake up and re-examine direction?

Partly as a response to the Chief and Indians model, but mostly out of frustration with the lack of a clear structure and direction in which our crosslease conducts its business, I wrote and distributed a detailled discussion paper to the members of the Owners Committee. Its first part are well-researched facts about our crosslease and all its responsibilities. The second part consists of my honest assessment of current issues. The third part was supposed to be developed cooperatively. It was intended that those areas of part 2, which still point to weaknesses of our crosslease, would be successively replaced by a documentation of the improved processes we implement to run our crosslease effectively. Such a document would give the crosslease clear guidance and an agreeable baseline on how we actually assign and monitor all our duties and responsibilities.

The discussion paper in this version was not intended for general release, before the identified major issues are addressed. But the hostile reception of my honest attempt to criticise what needs improving motivates me to carry the discussion to the wider owner community and does only strenghten my resolve to speak out. When you examine my contributions, you will notice that my arguments generally draw logical conclusions starting from well-referenced facts, numbers, quotes and e-mails. I'm commited to confront bulls**t, deceptions and cover-ups and to be open, transparent and honest, even if the odd person along the way doesn't like it. And there are still a few skeletons in the closet ready to fall out into the bright daylight with a loud rattling noise.

Your contribution matters

A well-run crosslease is not a particularly complicated construct. As long as the ground rules are understood and accepted by all participants and good communication is in place, most day-to-day matters can be set up in a way that requires only a minimum of management effort.

If you have the community spirit to contribute to the running of our crosslease, have particular skills and experience or at least a good common-sense understanding of such matters as organisation/process improvement, contract management, public service, accounting or building maintenance and are committed to following democratic processes, I would encourage you to engage in our affairs and join the Owners Committee. If you can't attend our AGM, I urge you to discuss your viewpoints with other owners and consider carefully who you pass on your proxy vote to be heard at that meeting.