Hi Faye,
Thank you for passing along the “informal” strata meeting minutes. It would be appreciated if you could forward this email in full to all members of the committee. There’s some very clear issues and many laws have been broken regarding Christopher Ho, Jeanette Ho and Ngoc Truong’s behaviour. All that seems to have happened since that “informal” meeting is that this unholy trio of Chris, Jeannette and Ngoc opened up more of their apartments on AirBnB during the holiday period.
Due to the length of this email I will firstly point out that Chris, Jeanette’s and Ngoc’s own family have been cooking methamphetamines in two apartments of this building. Costing the insurance companies well over $400,000 in an internal refit and covering of rental loss. We are all still very negatively impacted from this incident due to our claims history and substantial increase in insurance premiums. Strata Committee members can listen to the police interview with Chris, where he was arrested before this interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ho4Xf0RDWo. I will also preface this message by saying I have plenty of photographic evidence of the clandestine drug lab, including the meth being cooked, syringes in sinks from another of Chris’s apartments and many images of his apartment doors being broken down by NSW police (all separate incidents).
Regarding the informal strata meeting, my belief is that it was most definitely not legal. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. This informal meeting was minuted, even included apologies and most concerningly included directions given to the SMA that have since been acted upon but not ratified in a following formal meeting. A strata committee is most definitely not a secret club particularly when a strata managing agent is involved in a meeting. This is very clearly a breach of the SSMA, incredibly opaque and the furthest thing from transparent. It is a deeply disappointing decision to allow the compulsive liar, Chris Ho, to essentially be at that meeting unchallenged. I am sure he was in fine form on the evening of 9th of December. Chris and Jeneatte Ho have continually lied about running STL in this building since the very beginning, abusing their positions on the strata committee while monetarily gaining from their business and expanding on their attempted monopoly in this building.
There are MANY laws that have been broken regarding this behaviour.
Division 2, Section 37 “Duty of members of strata committee” states that: (1) Each member of a strata committee of an owners corporation has the following duties—
(a) to exercise the member’s functions—
(i) with honesty and fairness, and
(ii) with due care and diligence, and
(iii) for the benefit, as far as practicable, of the owners corporation,
Last I checked, lying about being engaged in STL, abusing your position to monopolise the STL in the building and fabricating stories regarding this behavior is very clearly illegal. It would be one thing if it was a normal resident like myself, but these are multiple committee members who have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the building. This is illegal.
In fact, this is what the “Committee code of conduct” that Strata Plus produce would be based on. Here is a signed for by Chris himself. Clearly documents by Strata Plus are not worth the paper they are written on… https://82haystreet.com/assets/docs/code-of-conduct-signed.pdf
Schedule 2, Part 3, Section 18 “Disclosure of pecuniary interests” states that:
(1) If—
(a) a member of a strata committee has a direct or indirect pecuniary interest in a matter being considered or about to be considered at a meeting, and
(b) the interest appears to raise a conflict with the proper performance of the member’s duties in relation to the consideration of the matter,
the member must, as soon as possible after the relevant facts have come to the member’s knowledge, disclose the nature of the interest at a meeting of the strata committee.
Maximum penalty—10 penalty units.
&
(4) After a member has disclosed the nature of an interest in any matter, the member must not—
(a) be present during any deliberation of the strata committee with respect to the matter, or
(b) take part in any decision of the strata committee with respect to the matter.
As this is the law, there is a serious issue with the third interim action item. Firstly, why is this only for Chris Ho? Not Jeanette Ho and Ngoc Truong? They have also been incredibly corrupt, particularly Jeanette as there are plenty of emails with claims of her outright denying her apartments being used for STL. Furthermore, the law is clear, if there is a pecuniary interest, it must be declared and secondly the member must NOT be present during any deliberation of the strata committee with respect to the matter. Action item 3 very clearly has no standing. The corrupt committee members must not be present while there are discussions about STL. The breach of this section also includes a potential fine of 10 penalty units ($1100). This would be for every time an interest has not been disclosed. As this unholy trio have been engaged in this since mid 2019 we are talking about a theoretical fine of just under $30,000 for Chris and substantial fines for Jeanette and Ngoc too. This is illegal.
I’ll also point out that this unholy trio have almost never complied with Section 258 of the SSMA 2015 either. Tenancy notice to be given to owners corporation
(1) If a lot is leased, the relevant person must give notice of the lease to the owners corporation not later than 14 days after the commencement of the lease.
Maximum penalty—5 penalty units.
In fact Strata Plus makes it very easy for all agents and/or owners to pass this information on through this page https://www.strataplus.com.au/tenancy-notice/. If this law was enforced then we would certainly not be anywhere near this farcical position the building is in now. It is actually a $550 fine as stated in the legislation if this is not complied with. This is also payable to the Owners Corporation, now wouldn't that be something!
You would all also be aware that during the AGM I raised the issue of STL three distinct times, but primarily regarding the preposterous $60 admin fee. It is beyond comprehension how it was Chris Ho that pushed for this illegal fee. Clearly unhappy with using his position to monopolise STL in the building he has wanted to essentially fine people for doing the same thing. There really are no words. From my understanding Faye hasn’t even applied this to anyone, or at least as of my meeting with Strata Plus on 4 December 2025. It has already been challenged by many other tenants and owners and is most definitely not legal. The fact that everyone apart from myself voted FOR this is, is a very clear indication of just how dysfunctional this stratum is.
Regarding the intractable insurance risk that Chris represents and the fact that his own family had been cooking methamphetamines in two apartments in this building. 2909/82 Hay Street and 609/88 Harbour Street. I would firstly implore everyone to listen to the police interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ho4Xf0RDWo. You will notice that at 4:23 and 5:40 Chris says these documents do not exist and yet when it came to sending over certain documents requested by the insurance company he magically was able to produce them. (Attached). You will notice Chris’s, Jeanettes and Ngoc’s signatures on these documents too. So, there are only two options, either Chris lied in the Police interview or he submitted false documents to the insurance company.
Most shockingly of all is that even when his own family member was running these clandestine meth labs, paying in cash, no lease documents, the insurance company paid $100,000 in rental loss. We are of course now paying for that. INSANE!
In fact Chris’s lies are catching up with him in a very bad way. It is also noted that in September 2019 when he was already engaged in STL in Darling Rise and building management chased him up about it he denied it was him and passed along David Truong’s email and said it was David. Clearly David Truong had his work cut out, running an AirBnB in 604 Darling Rise and two clandestine drug labs in 2909 Darling Rise and 609 Arena.
In unit 609 it is noted that the amount of detected methamphetamines was 68,000x times greater than the Health Investigation level. Most sections of the apartments were also thousands of times higher than the safe amount. In fact outside unit 2909 there was a 1,200x greater than the HIL outside the unit in the common area. As we have a shared HVAC systems on each floor, everybody else on levels 29 Darling Rise and 6 Arena would no doubt have been inhaling toxic fumes. Furthermore, it is also noted that the Ho/Truong family completed an unauthorised clean of the apartments, no doubt further contaminating common areas and without the use of proper safety equipment and precautions.
In the relevant insurance documents this was a statement provided “During a follow-up site visit, it was noted that conditions within this unit had changed. Statements from the property owner indicated that a general clean of the work area by the family of the former tenant had occurred.” Thankfully the insurance company took extensive imagery of the state of the apartments before the Ho/Truong family completed this unauthorised clean.
Going through the emails of this stratum I will point out some poignant quotes that I have read regarding this issue. From Karen Su - discussing the increase in insurance premiums "The likely cause could be a drug lab being operated previously. If it's correct, the cost should be reimbursed from the lot agent or owner for their negligence. It's unfair for the other owners to bear the cost. Any cost or damages associated with drug activities should be recovered from the lot owner/agent to prevent potential insurance renewal or premium issue going forward."
In fact we are not able to get high quality insurance quotes and stuck with the dregs due to our previous claims history. My belief is that this drugs incident involving the Ho and Truong family is around 10x larger than any other in this building.
From Faye Tang "It is true that the main reason for the increased insurance premium was due to those two drug labs in Arena and Darling Rise. We believe the issues were caused by the tenants not the owners/agents. Those tenants' details were passed to the insurer CHU. CHU's claim department will try to recover the costs from the tenants."
The current situation in the building is beyond belief. Everyday that goes by it feels like I live in a hotel, the more I investigate this whole situation the worse it gets. There are so many conflicts of interest and serious issues in this building. The fact that many on the committee have been here since the beginning of the stratum is a very sad inditement on many of you. It is also noted that 5 of the 9 committee members have engaged in STL (4 in the past 12 months), two whilst even being members of the BMC representing Darling Rise.
As this is such a dysfunctional committee and if those that are corrupt have not been removed these are my next steps:
Thank you for your attention to this matter,
Robert Farynski