featured-image-posts-800w
No Comments

Strata – Electric Vehicle Ready Buildings Grant

The NSW Office of Energy and Climate Change (as part of the Net Zero Plan Stage 1) has introduced a grant with a quota to assist over 125 residential strata apartment buildings in NSW to install electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure within their carparks. Applications are now opened.

What this means is that owners corporation apartment residents may be able to charge their electric vehicles at home (within their building) without seeking electric ports elsewhere!

Eligibility Criteria (briefly) [...]  READ MORE →

No Comments

Strata Building Defects – Protections for Owners

Strata Building Defects and Part 11 Protections for Strata Owners

We have previously written an article about the new duty of care protection in favour of property and strata owners, which is available under the new Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 NSW (DBPA). Basically, it establishes a new duty of care against various building practitioners, retrospectively, covering losses arising from the last 10 years or so. However, that is not the only remedy available (of course). The issue of building defects have been around for a very long time and the legislation have been changing constantly, especially for strata buildings and it involves a myriad of legislation and laws. And that’s why those poor people at Opal and Mascot Towers were tearing their hair out when all those defects came into light. In passing, it is somewhat of a cold comfort to those at Mascot Towers, understanding that various defects were pre-existing at least since 2012 and structural defects still appear to remain. [...]  READ MORE →

No Comments

COVID-19 Laws on Strata and Community Schemes

Extension of COVID-19 Laws on Strata and Community Schemes

Due to ongoing issues with COVID-19 (although we suspect many of the stakeholders are pressing hard for these behind the scene to be frank), the NSW Government has extended the operation of the laws to allow general and strata committee meetings to be held remotely.

The previous provisions on these were set to be repealed on 31 May 2022. The laws will now continue to apply until 30 September 2022.

The extension of these laws under the strata and community regulations means that voting at a meeting held remotely can still be undertaken electronically, for example, teleconferencing, video conferencing, email, or other electronic means. This would by-pass the “normal” need for the schemes to have already resolved to opt into these electronic meetings. [...]  READ MORE →

No Comments

New Health Orders and police powers for Apartment Buildings

COVID-19 Laws – New Health Orders and police powers for Apartment Buildings

On 6 September 2021, the Minister for Health and Medical Research introduced a new COVID-19 Health Order. The revised Order includes additional provisions to facilitate government lockdowns of specific apartments.
In short, the Order offers the Minister the power to declare a building as a “high COVID-19 risk premises”. This declaration can be made if at least one dwelling in the building is considered a COVID-19 risk premises and there is a risk of transmission of COVID-19 between the residents. The declarations will be made on the NSW Health website.
Unless the Minister revokes the declaration, a building will remain a high COVID-19 risk premises for 14 days. During this time residents must not leave their residence unless they are instructed to do so by an authorised medical practitioner or the police, or in the case of an emergency. [...]  READ MORE →

No Comments

Short-term letting restrictions and how they impact you

Short-term letting restrictions – PART 2

Short-term letting restrictions and how they impact you

We have previously written an article about the short term letting issues affecting property and strata participants back on 6 March 2021 (You can read it here). In short, it dealt with Part 1 of the legislative framework to regulate the short term letting situation. It involves the NSW Fair Trading’s mandatory code of conduct (which regulates the conduct of short term letting, presuming it is permissible) and the Strata Legislation (which allows the strata schemes to ban short term letting in lots that are not a principal place of residence of the owner or occupier). [...]  READ MORE →

No Comments

Debt recovery and strata lot owner goes missing?

Debt recovery and strata lot owner goes missing?

A strata lot owner goes missing when council rates and strata levies were owed. What happens, you might wonder?

 This is essentially what has happened in the case of Council of the City of Sydney v Baboon Pty Limited [2020] NSWSC 1480. Council rates were owed to Council (the plaintiff) of around $9,500 and strata levies were owed to the owners corporation of around $26,000 (second interested party). As you may know, both Council and the owners corporation have the power to “force sell” the strata unit to recoup their respective fees and costs, whether or not the owner can be found. In this case, the strata unit owner cannot be found and so, Council in this instance decided to proceed with the sale. The property was sold to (and purchased by) Baboon Pty Limited (third interested party) for $136,000 in November 2018. [...]  READ MORE →

No Comments

Rewrite to Community Land Development and Management Acts

Complete rewrite to Community Land Development and Management Acts

The old set of community scheme legislation was effectively blown into pieces with the new, commenced on 1 December 2021. Are you ready for all the changes?

The Development and Management Acts 1989 are now repealed with the staged commencement of the new counterparts (Community Land Development Act 2021 and the Community Land Management Act 2021) started in March 2021 and “finally” on 1 December 2021.

The official line is that the reforms align the community scheme laws with that of the strata schemes. And the official line is not wrong. However, there were significant points of differences between the two sets of legislation in the past and even now. And additionally, strata schemes simply do not have the more complex issues such as the tiered scheme systems such as neighbourhood and precinct schemes, association property, community management statement, etc. [...]  READ MORE →

No Comments

Combustible cladding problems in strata apartments

Most of you would have heard about the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London, the 2014 Lacrosse building fire in Melbourne and/or the 2012 West Terrace fire in Bankstown NSW. The result of those fires is the renewed focus in fire safety laws for strata buildings, especially those with external combustible cladding.

In New South Wales, those laws involve:

  1. Building Products (Safety) Act 2017 (NSW);
  2. Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2000 – which was amended under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Identification of Buildings with External Combustible Cladding) Regulation 2018; and
  3. State Environmental Planning Policy Amendment (Exempt Development—Cladding and Decorative Work) 2018 (NSW).

In brief, the legislative framework seeks to (i) ban certain products from being installed on buildings (Type A or Type B construction) regardless of whether they may have a current CodeMark Certification, (ii) override various requirements of the BCA where there is an inconsistency with respect to the product bans, (iii) identify and collect information about buildings to which external combustible cladding has been applied, (iv) maintain a statutory register of the affected buildings with certain information to be provided to Fire and Rescue NSW and (v) to restrict or prohibit cladding and decorative work from being carried out as an exempt development. [...]  READ MORE →

No Comments

Commercial Law – Taxing Times for foreign owners

By Natalie Gosper, a Solicitor in our Commercial Law team.

In 2016 and continuing in early 2017, we saw many changes to legislation affecting both vendors and purchasers of property. These changes largely came about due to the new Commonwealth Reporting Requirements (CRR).

The CRR places requirements on States and Territories to report transfers of freehold or leasehold interests in land.  The information collected is used for data matching by the ATO to ensure compliance with Commonwealth tax laws and for the establishment of the National Register of Foreign Ownership of Land Titles. [...]  READ MORE →

No Comments

Strata committee powers and obligations

The new strata legislation imposes a high standard of care and diligence on the strata committee when it carries out its functions, such that individual strata committee members can be personally liable for their actions. However there are powers which are afforded to the strata committee, which include orders to dispose of abandoned goods left on common property, the power to make orders for payment of contributions (which operates as an enforceable judgment), and the power to dismiss applications for mediation if frivolous or lacking substance. To learn more about your rights as members of a strata committee please do not hesitate to contact one of our qualified strata lawyers in Sydney. Accessing executive committee legal advice from an experienced Owners Corporation Solicitor will ensure that every executive committee member is aware of their obligations and responsibilities. [...]  READ MORE →

No Comments

Financial Management

Money from the Owners Corporation enforcing penalties will be paid into the strata scheme administrative fund, while amounts paid from the building bond are to be paid to the capital works fund. The 10 year capital works plan (sinking fund) is to be reviewed every 5 years. Owners Corporation legal advice can be obtained from one of our experienced Owners Corporation solicitor Sydney.