It’s not exactly Strictly Ballroom but the slow…slow…quick-quick…slow progress of NSW strata law reform dances on, albeit with a few shimmies and sidesteps as the details are fine-tuned.
And that means some proposed reforms will be waltzed completely off of the final draft Bill while other more controversial elements – like the ability of 75 percent of owners to agree to sell the whole building – are here to stay.
Among the proposed changes not to survive cabinet scrutiny, there will be no direct election of office-bearers by all owners at AGMs. As now, they will be chosen by the executive committee members.
One reason is that if you need to have a general meeting to replace an under-performing chairman or secretary, and they’re supposed to organise and run the meetings, it probably going to happen.
The upper limit of nine members of the strata committee (as the EC will be renamed) will be retained, partly to prevent the “too many cooks” problem but also to avoid situations where anyone who raises their hand might get to be on the committee even though the majority of owners don’t want them there.
The anomaly of community committees having fewer members that there are buildings in their scheme is apparently going to be addressed separately in community law reforms. Some large schemes in Sydney have 20 or more separate buildings competing for only nine seats on the over-arching committee.
The idea of having ‘mission statements’ like “We love pets but we hate parties” on the front of by-laws has bitten the dust. Apparently it would leave strata schemes open to legal action if they failed to live up to their stated aims.
However, controversial items like the curbs on proxy harvesting are still there, as is the voting threshold of 75 percent for “collective sale” – or “throwing Auntie Mabel out of her flat so we can sell the building to developers,” as we call it. But the multi-stage safeguards to calm that process have been retained too.
Strata managers will be limited to contracts of three years but they will have to declare commissions for insurance companies (and anyone else) up front.
However caretaker contracts, the carbuncle on the face of strata living, will still be permitted up to 10 years.
You’ll find details of a few more dropped clauses on the Flat Chat Forum.
A version of this article has also appeared on the Sydney Morning Herald’s online pages and in the print edition of Domain.