Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means. For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate. The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. – Ronald Reagan
Every community scheme will at some point in time have to address a dispute that has arisen. How the tenants, owners and scheme executives respond in these times will either lead to the glorious triumph that Ronal Reagan refers to, or it can lead to division and conflict in the scheme.
In 2016 in our beautiful country, the Community Schemes Ombud Service (CSOS) was born, with its aim being to achieve “Affordable Reliable Justice”. There were many at the time, this writer included, who believed the CSOS would never be an effective body, just another very costly government initiative that was doomed to fail. Now I must eat humble pie!
I have seen firsthand the effectiveness of using the CSOS to resolve disputes, thereby avoiding costly legal action. But can you rush off to the CSOS as soon as you are unhappy with an outcome?
The answer is a very clear NO!
At Whitfields, every one of our managed schemes is provided with an interactive website. This includes the Whitfields “Seven Secrets of Effective Scheme Management”, and one of those seven secrets is dispute resolution. Click on it, and you will see on your screen the seven steps you need to follow when you become embroiled in a dispute.
Midway through the process, you will have the option to log a formal dispute online. This triggers a standard procedure for your scheme executives to follow, which steps are all the prerequisites to lodging a dispute with CSOS. If you are happy that your scheme executives have addressed the problem, nothing further is required. If you are still unhappy, you simply click on the CSOS link and commence with a formal CSOS dispute application. 
In your CSOS application, you will need all the input and output from your attempt to resolve the matter internally, which is why you must follow this internal process first and can’t simply rush straight to the CSOS.
What is equally important is that all sectional title community schemes need to have in their rules, the internal dispute resolution process to follow, as laid out in Annexure 4 of the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act Regulations. Given that this process is linked to the CSOS requirements, it also makes sense for property associations to adopt similar rules.
At Whitfields, we have a standard set of rules that we have compiled for our schemes to use. Scheme executives should simply ask their relationship managers for more information.