Potts Point car space settled in costly Supreme Court case
Erectile disfunction doctor Joseph Pollak's pricey Potts Point car space purchase in 2015 has ended up in a costly court case win after almost three years of disputation with the owners corporation at the 1960s block, The Chimes.
The problem arose because access to the $264,000 parking lot requires passage over the neighbouring common area. It seems the strata dispute began soon after Pollak's purchase when the body corporation installed a chain along the boundary.
Dr Pollak loosened the chain, complaining it prevented him from parking.
The body corporate then moved to install a garden which would have also disallowed car manoeuvring.
There was even an ambitious building proposal for the space.
"When the chain incident, the building proposal and the garden proposal are taken together, it is clear that the parties are in dispute," his honor noted as he reviewed the requirements specified by AS2890.1, the Australian Standard for Parking Facilities.
The strata, represented by Elisabeth Peden SC in the NSW Supreme Court over three days last month, argued unsuccessfully "there was no controversy to be quelled."
Justice Francois Kunc gave a declaration allowing access over an 870 millimetre strip of land after Ken Demlakian, the doctor’s engineering expert, provided uncontradicted evidence that a forward in/reverse out exit manoeuvre encroached 1,175 millimetres, whereas a reverse in/forward out manoeuvre encroach by 870 millimetres.
"The Court is dealing with car parking, not microsurgery," his honour, the son of František Kunc, the late Sydney sausage king, wryly added.
Not everything went the doctor's way as the strata won costs as the proceedings ought have been taken in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, not the Supreme Court.
This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.
