RANT: New laws mean little without test cases

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So NSW has a new strata commissioner, in the form of Angus Abadee who has been acting in the role since the turn of the year and was a policy adviser under Building Commissioner David Chandler when he was kicking butt and taking names.

With new laws coming into force in a few weeks it will be interesting to see what Mr Abadee does with them. 

Maybe we’ve been given a taste already when, in his role as acting commissioner, he pursued the prosecution of errant strata manager Michael Lee to the point where NCAT banned Lee and his company Result Strata from ever operating in the sector again.

Angus also was a driving force behind the Strata Taskforce which was gathering up complaints from the victims of strata rorts and investigating the claims. He sounds like our kind of commissioner.

When the law changes from July 1, to give strata contracts the same protections as everyone else under federal consumer protection laws, he will have a new weapon.

But will he use it?  Chances are his approach won’t be like David Chandler’s army swooping in on building sites and locking the miscreants’ gates.

Instead we, the victims, will have to lawyer up against huge companies with deep pockets and a konga line of KCs to fight their corners.

Who is going to run test cases on behalf of swindled strata owners, if only to establish a few legal precedents – because that’s how the laws get changed in strata?

Don’t forget that the laws on pets didn’t change until Jo Cooper challenged her building’s by-laws in NCAT and ultimately in the Court of Appeal. Then they changed for the whole country.

So welcome, Commissioner Abadee. You’ve spent the last six months taking names: now it’s time to kick some butt on behalf of the owners who can’t afford to hire a raft of lawyers every time they are ripped off.