Hi Whale
Word from the NSW Dept of Planning & Infrastructure: “The long established practice of short term holiday letting has traditionally played an important role for holiday accommodation in NSW. It contributes significantly to both local and state economies and for the most part occurs without incident… The Department of Planning and Infrastructure is also currently reviewing issues relating to short term holiday letting and how these are addressed under current planning legislation.”
I very much hope they’re not going to ‘fix it’ so that short term holiday letting becomes ‘legal’ across the board! Not only does this blight cripple and buggar up Residential Lot Owners, these bods don’t pay any GST, they don’t have to pay for the infrastructure found in legitimate, purpose-built ‘Tourist’ facilities/properties, thus they effectively undercut legitimate Tourist Operators and deprive us of GST revenue.
Secondly, in your Insurer’s ‘Duty of Disclosure & Policy Statement’ there will no doubt be something along the lines of: “you or anyone doing anything on your behalf must obey all laws.” If short-term letting is considered by your Local Council, the body granting the Development Consent on your building, as an ‘Illegal Use’ – as does City of Sydney Council – then I’d take this to be NOT obeying all laws = your insurer has the right to withhold payment in the event of a major claim.
Say a claim could be worth well in excess of $100 million plus in a large City-based building, where surrounding commercial and other properties are affected, which way do you suspect an insurer would jump? Would they pay up, or simply opt out saying that there was an ‘illegal use’ going on within the building…
Jimmy, I agree with you: If owners/tenants are in residence and they rent out their spare room, this is along the lines of house/flat sharing etc. Same as when friends/rellies come to stay for up to a couple of weeks…building management advised…etc. The problem is when flats are let on a quasi ‘hotel type’ basis with little to no supervision. People ‘checking in’ to our property are constantly amazed to find that people live in the building; they understand it to be a hotel/serviced apartment complex.
Cheers all