The Owners - Strata Plan 6877 v 2-4 Lachlan Avenue Pty Ltd; The Owners - Strata Plan 6666 v Kahu Holdings Pty Ltd Respondent

EXTEMPORE JUDGMENT

1. HIS HONOUR: In each of these matters, the Dissenting Owner has made an application for an order for security for costs to be made against the relevant Owner's Corporation. In each instance the relevant Owner's Corporation has indicated by a document filed with the Court that it supports the application being made for security for costs by the Dissenting Owner. The entitlement to costs for a Dissenting Owner which would potentially be satisfied by such an order post trial arises from s 188(1)(a) of the Strata Schemes Development Act 2015 which provides that: Unless the Court otherwise orders, the reasonable costs of proceedings for an application for an order to give effect to a strata renewal plan that are incurred by a Dissenting Owner are payable by the owner's corporation.
2. There are several matters of discretion that arise under that provision, but that they are matters that only arise for consideration post facto and not in advance. In my earlier decision (The Owners - Strata Plan 6666 v GSA Australia Acquisition No 2 Pty Ltd and Kahu Holdings Pty Ltd; The Owners - Strata Plan 6877 v GSA Australia Acquisition No 2 Pty Ltd and 2-4 Lachlan Avenue Pty Ltd [2018] NSWLEC 115), I described those proceedings, in shorthand terms, as being "the Lachlan Avenue Proceedings", an appellation which I adopt for the purposes of this decision.
3. The affidavit of Laura Dale, dated 3 August 2018, was read without objection. That affidavit provides information as to the comparative impecuniosity of the relevant strata plan owners and the likelihood that, in the ordinary course of events on the estimate of costs provided, that Owner's Corporation would not be in a position to meet an order pursuant to s 188(1)(a) of the Act without going through the process of levying its owners, other than the dissenting owners, in a fashion which would permit it to do so absent having recourse to any third party for those purposes.
4. In the Kahu proceedings, adopting again the same appellation as I adopted in my earlier decision concerning these two strata redevelopment schemes, I have sufficient evidence to satisfy me, from the affidavit of Paul Brazier sworn 11 April 2018, that there is a similar lack of financial ability on behalf of the relevant Owner's Corporation to satisfy any order which might be made in those proceedings pursuant to s 188(1)(a) without having to go through the process of levying its members, other than its Dissenting Owner, unless it too was indemnified by some third party.