If there’s one aspect of Company Title apartment living that strata owners secretly long for it’s the ability to choose your neighbours (which would almost but not quite make up for having to take every minor dispute to the Supreme Court). But couldn’t we just pass a by-law to allow vetting of potential tenants in our strata buildings?
QUESTION: My building’s Executive Committee and strata manager want to introduce a special by-law that won’t allow an owner of a unit to enter into a lease agreement with a prospective tenant until they have approved them.
The proposed by-law says that lot owners have to notify the EC and/or the strata manger before a lease is signed. It goes on to say that the EC can’t “unreasonably withhold their approval” and there’s another clause that says you can’t let the apartment to more than two tenants. Is this legal? – Vetted, Coogee.
ANSWER: In a word, no. Strata law prevents the Owners Corporation from passing by-laws that would restrict how you choose to manage your property. It says: “No by-law is capable of operating to prohibit or restrict the devolution of a lot or a transfer, lease, mortgage, or other dealing relating to a lot.”
That means nobody can tell you who you can or can’t let or sell your apartment to.
I think your neighbours need to spell out what the problems are that they are trying to resolve here. If it’s a case of people persistently renting their units to bad tenants then the by-laws need to reflect that and deal with it legally.
Are they using “notices to comply” properly? A better by-law might demand that owners take responsibility for their tenants and state that failure to get tenants to abide by by-laws, or to evict tenants who persistently breach by-laws, will be a breach in itself and subject to the same “notice to comply” procedures.
If your strata manager really is supporting a “vetting” by-law, then it’s time you got a new one because they clearly don’t know strata law (which may be another reason your building has problems).
By the way, despite the “dealing” law, you can still restrict short-term lets and, possibly, numbers in apartments because local planning laws supersede by-laws.