[Millie]

lewdog……”it is only viable in holiday locations or close to a CBD to get enough guests. As such, it is not impacting supply of properties for rent.” And:  “The guests have been fantastic and the house has never been in better condition.”

Figures compiled today:

City of Sydney Council: 6,008 homes on Airbnb/Stayz –  931 homes on Domain

Waverley Council Area: 4,498 homes on Airbnb/Stayz – 382 homes on Domain

Randwick Council Area: 2,649 homes on Airbnb/Stayz – 495 homes on Domain

Byron Shire Council:  2,280 homes on Airbnb/Stayz – 50 homes on Domain

(The list goes on.)

NSW Land and Environment Court:  Mixing short-term lets/serviced apartments with permanent residential occupancy is “fundamentally incompatible”.  That goes for free-standing houses as well as apartment buildings.  I’ve lived with it.  It’s “HELL“.  Short-term landlords still control the Strata Committee.

Short-term lets in residential housing are driven by higher financial returns – pure and simple.

Residential Housing is for the housing of Residents.

(www.neighboursnotstrangers.com)  (www.bridgeportapartmentssydney.org)

[Millie]

I’m not sure if this post is permitted?

After 17 months of getting no where with my Strata I contracted a company called Wet Area Solutions.

In exactly six days they’ve renovated my bathroom:  Strip out of old fixtures (shower screen, cabinets, etc), installation of Spapanles over existing wall tiles, plus tiling over original tiles on the floor, installation of new cabinets and taps/showerhead…no plumbing infrastructure moved.  

I have had to pay a bond (ensuring that there is no damage to common property) but by leaving all existing common property in situ, there hasn’t been a need for a special by-law nor registering the work on Title, as has been demanded by the strata in the past.

Good range of panel style/colours.  Staff:  extremely efficient – can’t recommend them highly enough.

My experience:  fantastic, after 17 months of being blocked, blocked, blocked by SMA/Strata Committee.  

Hope this helps. JimmyT to decide whether this post is appropriate.

[Millie]

Thanks JimmyT.

Under the new legislation, must one go first to Mediation before applying for Orders?  

Our Respondents always refuse Mediation and I understand we only have 28 days to lodge an objection to the Resolutions passed.

With thanks

[Millie]

Gee Airbnb/Stayz etc have a hard time.  Academics, social commentators, San Francisco’s Financial Controllers, and even the Australian Bureau of Criminality all come up with data which Airbnb’s marketing gurus constantly claim is faulty. 

I for one don’t know of a single jurisdiction anywhere where Airbnb is working openly with legislators; quite the reverse.  They were roundly criticised in a 2015 Federal Inquiry into tax avoidance.

We already have legislation which prohibits short-term lets in our Strata buildings – our NSW Legislation, backed up by case law (Land and Environment Court).  

The NSW Parliamentary Hearing Committee didn’t identify one single fault with our legislation.  What was very evident:  every local government representative who appeared before the Hearing Committee admitted that they hadn’t followed through on a single complaint from their constituents about short-term letting.  Shameful.

Watching Neighbours Not Strangers Facebook page (they work with data supplied by Murray Cox’s Inside Airbnb), last week’s figures on the number of Airbnb/Stayz rentals as opposed to properties available for rent to tenants in prime areas of Sydney and elsewhere, it’s obvious tenants are pushed out so that tourists can move in.  It’s a disaster. 

No wonder Airbnb – worth in excess of USD30 billion – is so eager to peddle their spin and protect their “penetration” into our residential housing:

City of Sydney: 6,012 homes on Airbnb/Stayz, 1,030 homes on Domain

Waverley:  4,532 homes on Airbnb/Stayz, 388 homes on Domain

Randwick:  2,657 homes on Airbnb/Stayz, 501 homes on Domain

Woollahra:  1,333 homes on Airbnb/Stayz, 247 homes on Domain

Warringah: 1,268 homes on Airbnb/Stayz, 318 homes on Domain

Byron: 2,306 homes on Airbnb/Stayz, 61 homes on Domain

Our Strata Manager/Strata Committee left us in no doubt this week; given the possibility to vote to pass a by-law on this issue, they will vote in a by-law which allows our building to be advertised again on hundreds of websites as a  cheap/budget hotel, motel, serviced apartments, backpackers lodge…

Residential housing is for residents. Investors can and always have rented their properties…to tenants.  That goes for home/flat-shares also. 

JimmyT, keep up your reporting.  There seems to be so much media on Airbnb which suspiciously resemble ‘Cash for Comment’ and we simply don’t have a voice.

[Millie]

If I had known, would I have every sold my former home and moved into strata…?

An update on an ‘Invalid’ 2016 AGM, reconvened two nights ago:-

In the last four years, the CTTT/NCAT has rejected all Request for Orders over our property, a strata building in Sydney.  The first of the three request for Orders – the mandatory appointment of a Strata Managing Agent – was dismissed.  The Respondents gave written assurances to the Adjudicator of the CTTT that a tender process for a new strata managing agent would resume if/when the Request for Orders were dismissed (SCS 13/15832).  Those Strata Managing Agents initially contacted to submit tenders were never contacted again – confirmed by Mr ABC of Strata Managing Agency XYZ.

 

• Every single request/Motion ever put to review the performance of the current Strata Managers has been denied/defeated.  
• Every single request/Motion ever put to send the contract to tender to gauge the market value of the contract has been denied/defeated.  (Of course this is bar one; which, as predicted and expected, never went the distance.)
• A request/Motion to hold our 2016 Annual General Meeting after the introduction of new SSMA legislation, whereby the holding of proxies is limited, was denied/defeated. 

The requests from almost all Owners present at the reconvened 2016 Invalid Annual General Meeting held this week to put the strata agent’s contract to tender was overridden by the Chairperson, a disgraced former MP.  With proxies, (held because the meeting was under the SSMA 1996) saw carried the Motion to grant the Strata Managing Agents a further 3-year contract, bringing to 21-years the length of their engagement.

At no time during all these years has there ever been a review of the Strata Managers or their contract terms and conditions, despite all our pleas to do so.   Owners were in turn told that they have the right to voice any concerns to members of the Strata Committee; to which Owners responded that they do not have the contact details of anyone on the Committee.

 

For the fourth General Meeting in a row, all Motions calling for compliance with various levels of legislation were defeated.

 

I am waiting to be told again that I haven’t done enough…whatever I’m doing I’m obviuosly doing incorrectly…I’m obviously incompetent, etc etc.  I’ve given this my ALL.  And perhaps those criticising are correct.

 

Strata Managing Agents publically congratulate Lawyers who have ‘saved their bacon’ at the NCAT, and in turn the Lawyers, who have received Lot Owner’s monies, write glowing public reviews of the Strata Managing Agents.

 

Our system, our legislation is meant to deliver transparency and fairness. In my opinion, and in our case, it is failing, miserably and completely.

 

[Millie]

Proudsceptic says:  “One of the reasons why this issue is tricky is that there is case law which indicates that short term rentals do not necessarily trigger a ‘material change of use’. Therefore Councils cannot ban them in every instance.”

(Proudsceptic, did I see in an earlier post that you are a Queensland resident?) Would it be possible to have the reference to the case law mentioned please – is it NSW case law?  In the case of Dobrhotoff v Bennic, the Judge in that matter said, among many things:  “Inherent within the term “domicile” is, as a long line of authority in this jurisdiction has established, the notion of a permanent home or, at the very least, a significant degree of permanence of habitation or occupation…Tenancies of no more than a week are antithetical to this concept.”

NSW Land and Environment Court Judges have been very clear in their Judgements to date on the issue of short-term letting of residential housing. For other examples of NSW case law which state that short-term letting is “fundamentally incompatible” with permanent residential occupation go to the Neighbours Not Strangers website.

I believe the argument that by-laws (inferior in law to the Determination of Development Consent on a property) could/should be used to decide whether or not short-term letting is permissible in a residental property is critically dangerous territory.  We are talking about the homes and home lives of residents.  Why should owners, having purchased into a residential property, find that at a General Meeting the next week a gang of other owners vote to turn their home into a cheap, quasi-backpackers’ establishment?  This proposition goes against every fundamental element of good, social Planning and protection for the rights of Residents.

Individuals absolutely have the right to short-term let property; they should purchase/invest in serviced apartments, hotels, motels, other such establishments.

Residential Housing is for the housing of Residents.

[Millie]

As mentioned in an earlier post, an Owner in a block in Pyrmont wanted to short-term-term let, the OC had a by-law in place to stop this, the Owner took the OC to the NCAT and the NCAT sided with the Owner wanting to do short-term letting.

I have to hand a letter from Stuart Westgarth, Deputy President – Consumer & Commercial Division of the NCAT, who states, in relation to Strata Scheme Adjudicators of the NCAT:  “Strata Schemes Adjudicators do not have the power to determine mattes involving planning legislation.

Be assured that, to date, the NCAT hasn’t touched short-term letting: We’ve had a 1,200-page submission with a request for Orders rejected by the NCAT because it was based on short-term letting…or because the respondents (those short-term letting) included multiple State MPs and well-known Legal practitioners.  Take your pick as to why the NCAT rejected all our documentation on the matter.  And being terribly cynical after all this:  don’t ever expect to be successful if you take a complaint about every type of anti-social behaviour related to short-term letting to the NCAT, as has been suggested in the Report to Parliament as to how such matters should be ‘dealt with’ in future.

In NSW it all falls back to what is written on the Determination of Development Consent for your building, issued by the local council.  This has higher authority and overrules any by-law issued by an Owners Corporation.

The problem now is that the City of Sydney has made it pretty clear to State Parliament that they want short-term lets determined as ‘complying’ or ‘exempt development’, i.e. they don’t want to be bothered any more with having to enforce legislation.  And all Local Government representatives sitting before the Hearing Committee admitted that they’d done nothing about complaints over short-term letting because they don’t have the funds or manpower to deal with it.  That said, Miami Florida has issued USD4 million in fines between March-October 2016…you’d think that would be enough funding?  Plus the State Government seems willing and eager for Airbnb/Stayz and their cronies to get their hands on every residential property across the State.  This, despite screamingly clear examples of what is happening overseas and here in NSW with regards to Airbnb lets v lets available for tenants.

It is reported that in San Francisco Airbnb paid out USD8 million to lobbiests to defeat legislation which was set to curb their activities.  Perhaps no monies have had to change hands in NSW – our State MPs only too willing to open our doors to Airbnb?  Again, with MPs well know love of money…18your guess.

If to date you haven’t had short-term lets near you, be very, very, very worried.

[Millie]

Hi All

If an Owners Corporation can’t pass a Special By-Law banning short-term letter can they effectively pass a Special By-Law banning all animals?

I’m going to be minding one small, quiet dog and have been barred from bringing it into the building because of a special by-law.  Looks like I’ll have to decamp and move to her place to mind her.

If the NCAT won’t back an OC’s special by-law saying short-term letting isn’t allowed…

Cheers

[Millie]

Fred11

There has already been an instance where the NCAT has overridden a by-law which tried to outlaw short-term lets on a property at Pyrmont.  Under current legislation, such a by-law won’t hold up in the Tribunal.

JimmyT is correct – in NSW it all boils down to the exact wording in your Determination of Development Consent or DA.  

NSW Fair Trading has and will recommend introducing a by-law which calls for compliance with the DA on your building i.e., a by-law which calls for adherence to a ‘higher law’.

There is NSW Land and Environment Court case law, Foster v Sutherland Shire Council which mentions a residential lease being six months in duration however, under the current NSW Residential Tenancies Act there is officially no ‘minimum duration’ on a Residential Tenancy Agreement.  Note well – as per Proud Sceptic’s advice, a short-term letting agreement, be it Airbnb or one of hundreds of other Internet providers, does not classify as a Residential Tenancy Agreement under Sections 7 and 8(h) of the Residential Tenancy Act.

Quoting JimmyT again:  “once our MPs have handed the golden egg to short-stay letting agencies by making holiday lets partially exempt from planning restrictions, all our protections will evaporate.”   

Our State MPs, during the course of their Inquiry into short-term letting very much failed to obtain any Legal advice (according to someone who presented themselves at Parliament and asked the question directly), and they also failed to consult the Land and Environment Court (LEC) case law which was provided to them, they ignored all requests to consult with NSW Fire & Rescue, the National Building Codes of Australia and National Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Representatives from Social Housing, they also ignored data supplied from the Financial Controllers of the City of San Francisco, an Australian Criminality Report on ‘mixed use’ in High Rise Buildings, etc, etc.  There’s no doubt that our Pollies want to gift our housing to Airbnb/Stayz/Expedia etc, etc – that was very evident during the course of the Inquiry into short-term letting.

For links to NSW case law which makes very, very clear that short-term lets are not considered/classified as “Permanent Residential Occupation”, click here.

[Millie]

Hi Bonnie L

In NSW there is already a campaign running – see:

Website

Petition

Follow on Facebook (updated pretty much daily)

And in Victoria – please see:

Website

Petition

Hope this helps 

[Millie]

In the Final Report – Adequacy of the Regulation of Short-Term Holiday Letting in New South Wales (page 10 of 100) says:

“List of Recommendations and Findings, Recommendation 1, The Committee Recommends that the NSW Government amends:

1. a)     the Standard Instrument – Principal local Environment Plan to include a definition of short-term rental accommodation in the category of tourist and visitor accommodation 

1. b)     the State Environment Planning Policy (Exempt and Complying Development Codes) 2008 to allow short-term rental accommodation.”

Page 6 of the Report, under the heading “AMEND PLANNING LAWS TO REGULATE SHORT-TERM RENTAL ACCOMMODATION” –  goes on to say:

“1.9  Finally, we recommend that STRA be considered a residential use and that without special circumstances, no change of use occurs to trigger any issues associated with the application of the Building Code of Australia (BCA).”

(STRA = Short-Term Rental Accommodation)

– – – – –

With this, I understand the NSW Parliamentary Hearing Committee is side-stepping National Building Codes of Australia benchmarks and criteria, which would include Fire & Rescue and Disability Access stipulations etc, etc, etc.  It also completely ignores NSW Land and Environmentment Court case law.

Don’t think there’s really any need to read the other 98 pages in the Report.

All through the Hearing Committee process MPs were heard to repeat, repeat, repeat:  “Short-Term Letting is here to stay”.  And to Melbourne-based web platform owners who coach people on how to convert residential apartments into Airbnb rentals, MPs offered their congratulatulations to them for being innovative, while NSW residents who lived through 18 years of short-term lets were excluded from the Hearing process and one can’t read their Submissions, which have been declared by the NSW Parliament as “Confidential”. 

I believe this is what one could call ‘a stitch up’.

[Millie]

Simple, effictive and brilliant!  And damned cheap and quick.

A certain charman of a particular (parliamentary) committee has been asked how we will all, every single one of us, be compensated if changes to legislation mean the Titles and Planning Instruments on the property we have purchased – particularly strata and certainly Development Consents issued by the City of Sydney – are altered to permit the short-term letting cowboys access.  This has particular relevance when the Instruments and Titles that we hold very clearly exclude short-term lets.

Plus he’s been asked if the gaming and liquor and sex industries will also receive unlimited, unregulated and untaxed access to our residential housing.  No reply as yet.

Where people will be expected to live if there’s no such thing as a Residential zone?

I feel a major campaign just around the corner.

[Millie]

Alas, I suspect this won’t work.

A leading Sydney Barrister who is heavily involved in all things Strata has said that the Lot owner is inviting the ‘guest’ to the building and into the Lot so the ‘guest’ has the right to cross and use common property to access the Lot.  

To interfere in any way would probably expose oneself to charges of harassment etc.

And the State Government, should they cave in to the City of Sydney’s recommendations that short-term lets be deemed ‘exempt development’, will have to explain away the City of Sydney’s successfull arguments in the NSW Land and Environment Court and the Court’s repeated and consistent judgments that mixing short-term lets with permanent residents is “fundamentally incompatible”.

What are the chances of the State Government giving equal access to our Residential Housing to the Gaming and Liquor and Sex Industries?  Why limit short-lets of housing to Airbnb/Stayz/their clones?

[Millie]

Our EC has moved a Motion that Owners must give a minimum of 90 hours notice if they wish to attend an EC Meeting.  Owners are only granted24 hours to note the date of the meeting and meet the 90 hour cut off limit.  Is this permissible?

Our Strata Agent (one can’t attribute the word ‘manager’ to them) has banned an Owner’s request in writing for a proxy to attend an EC Meeting on the Owner’s behalf.  The owner had many Motions listed on the Agenda for the Meeting and was unable to attend due to travel commitments.  Can a Strata Agent do this?

Our EC has on all previous occasions ruled as ‘out of order’ all Motions previously put by this Owner.  With advice from the Dept of Fair Trading’s Head of Mediation the Motions were again put – the Motions ask for compliance with legislation and required a simple yes/no vote.  The EC declared the Meeting over after approximately 40 minutes claiming time restraints meant they couldn’t address the Motions.  They deferred all the Owner’s Motions until after the next AGM in two months time.  Some of the Motions call for action to be taken at a General Meeting.  Is such behaviour permissible?

In a response for a Request for Orders – the imposition of a compulsory Strata Managing Agent – the Executive Committee previously guaranteed to the CTTT/NCAT that they were undertaking a review of the Strata Managing Agent’s contract and, if the Request for Orders was dismissed they would immediately proceed with the tender.  The CTTT/NCAT used this assurance as the reason behind their dismissal for the Orders.  The tender process was never recommenced with the EC citing the Strata Manager’s particular knowledge of a major operation within the building, which was deemed by the Land and Environment Court/City of Sydney an “Illegal Use of Premises”.  Is this effectively contempt of the CTTT/NCAT?

Never have I know such an impossible scenario.  This is simply the latest episode in what a Strata Agent and Strata Committee Members are capable of.

[Millie]

Here’s the PETITION.  Get EVERYONE of your friends and neighbours – every resident in your building – to sign it!

The CEO of the City of Sydney has taken an official stance:  Council will not respond to correspondence on this issue.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore writes:  “It is important to note the City advocates for a state-wide approach, reflecting the views of community members, platform owners, tourist and visitor accommodation operators and investors.”  

This is a 380 degree back flip and is a recommendation affecting every NSW Resident, not just those in the City of Sydney.  

Can we identify just one – one – “community member” who has been consulted by Ms Moore and the City?  Anyone from Sydney?  Anyone across the State?

The NSW Police in Byron are operating under conditions they describe as a ‘war zone’, Byron’s mayor is putting pop-up housing to house residents priced out of housing, the homeless folks down in Nowra are told to move up into the caves, the highest ever levels tenant evictions and homelessness, the low-paid workers of Sydney sleeping rough in their cars?  We’ve got record levels of homeless right across the State.

Airbnb reportedly spent USD8 million in San Francisco lobbying city officials.  Can we know if any members of Council or State Parliament have received donations from the short-term platform owners? 

You can ask questions but, officially, Council will not answer you.

Here’s another great quote (and see the video): “Zoning Laws are only as good as the enforcement behind them.  If you don’t enforce, what’s the good of having them on the books? It comes down to trust in Public Officials to enforce the laws…because if they won’t enforce, they might as well not be there.”

Very, very, very angry Clover Moore/Monica Barone/City of Sydney.  Will we be adding the NSW Parliament to this?

[Author]

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