Poll votes reveal two distinct faces of strata

There are two distinct communities that the Fair Trading minister needs to consider, if our poll, asking you which of the proposed new strata laws in NSW you like best is any guide.

The first group comprises the long-suffering, established owners and residents who have been agitating for a fair deal for years.

The others are the strata newbies who are often operating with blind faith that their government would never allow them to be ripped off in the biggest purchase for which they will ever sign up.

Proposals like bringing strata contracts under Australian consumer laws affect everyone but it’s the long-term owners who know just how badly you can be screwed by one-sided strata management contracts, embedded networks and other dubious deals.

The same goes for obliging committees to comply with strata law, requiring building managers to act in the best interests of their strata schemes, and forcing strata schemes to get on with essential maintenance.

These are aspects of strata life that newcomers might well assume would be taken care of as part of the normal, sensible, logical operation of any corporation (which is what a strata scheme is).

Wiser, more experienced strata heads might tell them that these basic, commonsense components of strata life often have to be fought for.

However, banning underquoting of levies to attract new customers and allowing purchasers to rescind their sales agreement if they find they have been duped into unfair embedded network contracts only affect first-timers.

When examining new laws and regulations, the cynic in me always looks for the sacrificial ambit proposal, the one that can be ditched as a political trade-off to get everything else through.  In this case, my money is on the most radical of all the new ideas – that, for the first time, strata contracts come under Australian consumer laws. Until now they have been exempt.

You only have to look at the one-sided contracts offered by Strata Community Australia – the strata managers’ professional body – and the strata managers who claim they can’t be altered or modified, to realise that the SCA may be prepared to go to the barricades to prevent the law being changed.

We don’t know for sure because the SCA has stopped sending this journalist, at least,  Press releases about anything and doesn’t answer my emails.

As we say in this week’s podcast, the Attorney-General’s office, which is responsible for the highly unreliable Civil Administrative Tribunal (NCAT), may also be less than keen on the change if it means their powers will be diluted by the inclusion of federal rules and regulations.

Anyway, we’ll leave the poll open over Christmas so you can express your priorities as we shuffle towards the bright dawn of a new year in strata. You never know, if enough people support the idea of including strata in Federal consumer protection, the government might think twice before letting it go.