Strata law overhaul to improve apartment living in NSW: John McGrath
The biggest overhaul of NSW strata laws in four decades is about to make apartment and townhouse living that much easier, according to estate agent John McGrath.
Affcecting those who own, rent or manage strata properties, more than 90 individual changes to strata legislation have been approved by the NSW Government.
It followed five years of public consultation which saw 3,000 submissions.
Most of the changes are effective from November 30.
"Not only are there changes for owners, but tenants are included too, which is an important step given the rising number of people renting their homes these days," John McGrath noted.
Owners can set a broader range of community rules, such as allowing or restricting pet ownership, classifying smoking as a nuisance (thus enabling more action to be taken against residents whose smoke drifts into neighbouring abodes), and paying the local council to issue parking fines for unauthorised use of common property, such as visitors’ parking spaces.
"There are some common sense changes in relation to how a strata property is run, such as allowing owners to use technology to communicate on issues, participate in meetings and cast their vote.
"This includes the use of social media, video and teleconferencing, electronic voting and distributing papers via email," he noted.
Tenants will have the right to attend owners’ corporation meetings, but won’t be able to speak or vote unless they hold a proxy on behalf of an owner.
