Commerce Court Offices
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Welcome to Commerce Court Offices
Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3, Unit 4, Unit 5, Unit 6, Unit 7, Unit 8, Unit 9, Unit 10, Unit 11, Unit 12, 42 Commerce Avenue, Armadale, WA 6112
The snapshot of the City of Armadale's competencies in an office complex at the heart of Armadale
"The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves so they are arrogantly loud and confident that clever and wiser people silenced and made to feel full of doubts." Bertrand Russell.
The address is 39 Commerce Avenue Armadale on Landgate title search but called Owners of 42 Commerce Avenue on the strata plan, also known as Commerce Court. Understandably, it does not appear correctly when clients search for it on Google maps.
The address to serv notices is 420 STREICH AVENUE ARMADALE 6112 on Landgate records, however, this address does not exist.
The derelict street pilon shows a faint "420 commerce court" text on the top, so this might have been the original address as part of Streich Avenue. Although no longer able to get through, the phone number listed on the Landgate record is coming up on a google search belonging to Kythera Consultants PTY LTD. And that is where the information puzzle ends: it is not possible to find an original owner of a contactable source for the complex.
The following link is to reference photos of the surrounding area of the office complex at 42 Commerce avenue surrounding area photos.
This website aims to inform the public and help stakeholders find information about the unit complex's history and current matters.
Established and opened by the Armadale and Districts Chamber of Commerce in the '80s.
The Armadale Chamber of Commerce commemorative brass plaque was stolen or removed in January 2020 by either vandalism or some owner wanting to change the designation of the building from offices to use for something else. The latter seems more likely since the list of funding members and organizations/businesses' plastic commemorative plaques were also removed from a timber pole erected in the garden.
There is no mention in any strata meeting minutes regarding the reason or permit/request for removal, explanation, and no reference if the vandalism was ever reported to the police.
The complex is a strata-titled office building with a car park and gardens.
The Strata company is registered as Owners of 42 Commerce Avenue at Landgate and a council of owners is required to select and instruct a strata manager to manage the building on behalf of the owners.
Commercial Tenancies act is the law that governs the use and the terms and conditions of occupancy.
Only two owner-occupiers out of the twelve units, the rest are leased by various real estate agents on behalf of owners that are only interested in collecting money but not taking responsibility for managing the affairs of the complex.
The summary of the current state of affairs is as follows.
The building is in urgent need of maintenance and enforcement of compliance with the Tenancies act rules and regulations. The only way for compliance to law and order is by active management of the affairs of the complex by a competent strata manager and competent on-site building manager.
Tradespeople turn up unprepared without safety equipment and protective gear unannounced damaging the building gutter and roof and also interrupting business on site.
Since the year 2019 at least, the owners of some offices have been taking advantage of the incompetent strata management, incompetent Armadale council building, and health officials' inaction. The incompetent owner's Council is unable to guarantee the owners' and tenants' legal rights for compliance with the commercial tenancies act to operate without hindrance at 42 Commerce Avenue Armadale.
No written document to suggest that strata management made efforts to inform or educate about the obligation of owners to have a working council of owners required by law that, in turn, arrange adequate building management of the office complex.
Some of the unit owners passing the accessive cost of the overall water use, cleaning, toiletry sundries, and rubbish removal to the tenants based on office area and not in proportion to the occupancy number of the individual tenancies and actual use of these services. Traditionally these units had 2-4 occupants max since there is no adequate parking and limited toilets, even for only two people per office.
The "Not For Profit" Centacare operating on government and community grants, brought an additional 60-70 occupants into the three tiny offices they lease.
Centacare is using a said "government mandate" and the Catholic Archdeacon's signature as a guarantor as an excuse to impose their presence in the complex. However, their similar operation in the neighboring Gosnells suburb occupies a sizeable stand-alone building, thus not directly interfering with business operations.
As to the Tenancy Act requirements, there is supposed to be a Council of owners for this complex to upkeep the infrastructure and provide standard governing contracts to tenants.
Anytime the complex is fully occupied by tenants, parking, noise, rubbish, toilet access, and peace quality suffers. No set rules and site-specific recommendations exist for tenants, their clients, or the public: only one business owner-occupier and one business operator occupier in the complex. The rest of the tenants are leasing via different real estate agencies meaning very little or no interest in keeping to common sense and law adherence to community behavioural expectations by the employees of the organizations occupying these offices.
The complex has two toilets for each male and female business office occupant.
The office complex was never intended to be used as an educational facility, and there is no mention of such when owners advertise offices for lease or sale here. However, some owners and their agents find it an excellent business to lease out the offices as school rooms. Centacare ended up leasing three offices and now calls these small individual offices in the complex their "Armadale Campus."
There is no site inspection by the strata manager and no list of services provided in return for their strata management fees. No logbook for toilet cleaning and restocking of toiletries and no log of site inspection by strata management. No building manager resulted in the past roof panel hanging loose on the roof for months and was only fixed two weeks after a storm moved the sheet hanging down to the Centrelink car park, creating imminent danger, probably reported by Centrelink to the local Council or the strata manager. However, since the panel was a roof cover for the office unoccupied and adjacent toilets were not occupied by any tenant, it was not in any interest to the rest of the tenants to report.
A brass commemoration plaque on the rock in the garden until recently mysteriously disappeared sometime in January 2020 overnight.
Nobody seems to be aware of the;
why and how and if reported to police or strata or the owners.
The location of the complex does not appear on Google maps correctly, thus making it hard to find the public.
Tenants are usually uninformed about building maintenance and cleaning or any aspects of the budget, rules, regulations, or policies.
Tradespeople randomly appear on-site working on behalf of some tenants or the strata management; however, no notification is provided about the nature of work time of interruption to businesses by the noise of walking on the tin roof, cutting bushes using a petrol leaf blower in the courtyard, and so on.
There is no set of information available to tenants neither commencing their tenancy nor later about, for example;
the days of rubbish collection,
who has keys to the rubbish bin,
who has keys to access the electrical distribution box,
what to do in emergencies or faults requires immediate attendance from a plumber, electrician, or trade. No established communication channel for tenants to share information.
The complex has one water mains tap usage meter. Suppose the twelve offices or the common ablution area needs plumbing work. The whole complex will be without water for the time off work or until a plumber is contacted and work completed.
The 12-unit tenants have different leasing agents to contact. Depending on the time it takes for that agency to send a plumber, the complex could be without water for days if the breakdown happens on a Friday.
There are no rules about what type of business or organization can take a lease in the complex. Hence, individual owners and their leasing agents are free to lease the units, for example;
drug and alcohol cancelling, tattoo parlour, and juvenile delinquency cancelling posing a substantial business continuity risk for any professional service like accounting, financial assistance, professional consultancy services business operations.
There is no accountability and transparency about the building's management.
The building code and OHS regulations ignored:
Twenty people per toilet - there is only one single male unit
One employee per 10 square meters - 60 square meter office regularly has more than ten occupants as they are used as classrooms.
As a result, the building at times gets overcrowded. In addition, there is no parking available to some business owners and their staff or client/customers on occasions when there is a queue to use the toilets.
Having a larger than the ideal number of people on-site results in messing up the toilets, loitering, yelling, and foul language, thus frequently interrupting professional consultations in tenancies that provide professional services to the local community.
Some of the issues
Courtyard noise:
Pushing shopping trolleys up and down the pavement in front of office doors and windows
Taking phone calls on mobile phones on speakerphone in front of open office windows
Loud talk and yelling, foul language
Loud laughing
Demoralizing environment
Parking shortage
Unhygienic toilets
Tenancies operating without management require neatness, order, processes and procedures, rules, and structure in this office building and surroundings.
There is no communication from the strata manager to the tenants; rarely, any calls are returned.
The strata management agency provided no inspection schedule or sign-off sheet, so no supporting evidence of any inspection was conducted and charged to owners and tenants.
To date, we could not find any local, state, or national government department that could exercise authority or take responsibility to provide a solution. The typical response is to pass the buck that goes around to infinity, including the local Council, WorkSafe, OHS, or building code regulations. Authorities assume that others will do the work, so nobody acts upon complaints. No competent, responsible person has been available to start working on an adequate solution.
Incompetence, ignorance, malicious conduct, conflict of interest, and negligence are possible reasons for the commercial complex's current situation.
Conflict of interest exists;
An indirect financial advantage provided to some tenants when, for example
One
a common interests (for example, religious affiliations )with office owners
Aiding tenants' exploitation by allowing some offices to be used by an organization that uses a more significant proportion of the resources since:
Toilet sundries and water consumption expenses are equally and not proportionately shared.
Deny the tenancy act guaranteed a peaceful and quiet environment by favouring an organization over the tenants who also lease offices in the complex.
If you are considering leasing an office here, please ask for the Strata plan AGM minutes from the strata manager and seek advice from present and, if possible, past tenants.
Current tenants
Viva Photography U11-12
http://www.vivaphotography.com.au/
Emergency Contact
Empty unit 10 since February 2021
Armadale IT Support U9
https://www.armadaleitsupport.net.au/
Emergency contact Laszlo Jakso Ph:0457031949
Armadale Bookkeeping U9
Centacare U5 U7 U8
https://www.centacarewa.com.au/centacares-see-program-now-in-armadale/
Emergency Contact
Hayman Industries Pty. Ltd. U5
http://www.haymanindustries.com.au/
Emergency Contact
Naturaliste Finance and Insurance Solutions U6
Emergency Contact
Specialized Hand Therapy Services U3
https://www.specialisedhandtherapy.com.au/team_group/armadale/
Emergency Contact
Essential Personnel U1-2
https://essentialpersonnel.org.au/
Emergency Contact
Information for prospective tenants :
The current state of the building, facilities, and administration
No letterboxes on-site for tenants
No running hot water in the units
No rules or guidelines on the allowed size of business signs on the street pylon
There is no parking allocation system in place; business owners sometimes cannot find a parking spot to park their cars.
Accident near misses Armadale High School students using the footpath to ride their bikes to and from school are not visible when driving out to the car park because bushes on boundary lines block the sight of traffic. Also, the elderly residents in their mobility vehicles are a significant safety hazard and an accident waiting to happen.
A massive tree in the driveway is anecdotally registered as a heritage item and can not be touched.
No clear responsibilities are defined and documented for site-specific matters. Only vague and standard general strata law terms are in place.
Overnight lighting of the car park and the building is probably on a timer switch and operates on certain days and nights, but we are unaware of who pays for it and why and what exact operation schedule.
There are no rules about the building's exterior aesthetics requirements; the run-down appearance is not the best advertisement for any reputable business or organization occupying a tenancy in the complex.
No occupancy limit and no recommendations, a free for all approach to the detriment of paying clients
Since there are no rules, there are frequent frustrating situations.
When questions arise, strata point the finger at the local Council or individual unit owners and tenants.
Some unit owners do not care about the rest of the tenant's rights or have no understanding/respect for Strata law.
The local Council cannot force owners to do anything they want to do regarding the premises' upkeep.
Tenants take up leases based on rosy real estate pictures of well-maintained gardens, plenty of parking and friendly community spirit in the complex but find out otherwise after moving in and that all that was just misleading advertising.
There are rats in the ceiling, no parking at times due to some tenants' clients flooding the car park unannounced, and frequent antisocial behaviour from some tenants' clients.
Empty promises and false statements
Owners - Body Corporate / there is no functional Council of Owners operating.
Strata management by O'Neil Realestate Kelmscott https://oneilrealestate.com.au/strata-management/
The following information is from the strata manager company website.
Service Guarantee
Our commitment is to provide you with the highest standard of service. Promises are easily made and just as quickly forgotten. We believe that you should only ever make promises you can keep. We are unique in making these commitments through our service guarantee.
- To respond to your telephone calls within 24 hours
- To respond to fax and email requests within 24 hours
- To not make excuses but provide solutions
- To prepare all documentation following the Strata Titles Act
- To maintain all financial records of the strata company as required by the Strata Titles Act
- Ensure that all common property is kept in excellent & serviceable repair.
- To ensure that all building structures within a strata scheme are adequately insured.
- To control & manage the common property for the benefit of all proprietors
- To enforce the by-laws of the strata company
- To arrange and register changes to by-laws
- To carry out an on-site review at each complex at least twice a year
- To carry out an Annual General Meeting for the complex once a year
- To monitor levy arrears regularly and promptly issue the appropriate notices
- To have a thorough knowledge of the Anti-Discrimination and Privacy Act
- To administer all funds through an audited trust account
- To use a quality system with checklists to reduce human error
On-Site Attendance
Our strata management team regularly attends the complex on behalf of the corporate body to ensure that the common areas are maintained.
During this visit, we conduct a general check of the complex. The Council of owners will be contacted immediately if any major maintenance is required.
A lack of maintenance on the property hinders the capital growth of the investment and could lead to an injury claim.
Maintenance
The Strata Titles Act requires the company to ensure that all common property is maintained, repaired, and replaced where needed.
We only engage tradespeople who meet our office's high standards. For example, they must be licensed and have public liability insurance coverage to protect the body's corporate owners.
If we are not satisfied with the quality of the artistry, we will instruct the tradesperson to rectify the problem immediately.
The neglect of minor repairs will always lead to significant (and more costly) repairs later. Our maintenance program will ensure that problems are rectified quickly at a competitive price.
Armadale Council - https://www.armadale.wa.gov.au/economic-development
The Economic Development Framework focuses on three main objectives:
- Encourage infrastructure and investment
- Promote and market Armadale
- Support businesses.
Business community request
Business support we need is:
Take responsibility and provide accurate and transparent information to prospective ( and existing ) business tenants regarding who is responsible for the council area regarding business premises, ownership, and lease conditions.
Over the years of renting or owning offices at the Commerce Court complex, tenants spent countless hours writing emails and making inquiries about who was responsible for what in and around the complex.
To date, there is no known reliable source of information collection available to tenants or prospective tenants.
