As we hurtle towards the new strata laws due to come into force in NSW on July 1, there’s a negative thought niggling at me.

I believe there’s no point in passing laws that can’t be enforced, and that principle applies to at least two sections of the new regulations.

According to the Fair Trading website, duties for strata committees will soon include that their members must: 

• behave honestly and fairly when carrying out their role;
• not behave in a way that would unreasonably affect another person’s use or enjoyment of their property or the common property;
• comply with their obligations under the strata laws;
• only use or disclose information you receive as a committee member (including information about an owner), if you are allowed to under the law or need to as part of carrying out your role.

Okay, that last one is a bit scary. Is it a ban on gossiping about Mrs McCluckie’s new much younger boyfriend whose Maserati is permanently parked in a visitor spot? 

Or is it more like insider trading; rushing to put your apartment up for sale when you get the first whisper of an impending huge special levy, while delaying the decision for as long as you can?

The other, slightly less worrying new law covers duties for the chairperson, who must:

• follow the agenda at meetings
• maintain order at meetings  
• encourage owners to discuss items on the agenda in a fair, constructive and open manner. 

Sounds good, but can someone define what “fair, constructive and open” means? And what if your chair has a tendency to get Trumpy, ignore the agenda and shut owners down when they complain? There’s no penalty.

There are countless realistic scenarios that would breach the above regulations and they all have one thing in common: the rules can’t be enforced.

What happens if the chair doesn’t maintain order?  Just as there are no StrataKops to ping you for by-law breaches, there is no strata riot squad to quell insurrection at the AGM (unless, like the now-banned Michael Lee, you hire your own).

Of course, the committee can very easily elect a new chair if the current one isn’t up to the job. But while we’re on the subject, what happens if your committee members don’t “behave honestly and fairly” or “comply with their obligations?”

Now, to be fair to the policy wonks at Fair Trading, there are also new laws in place that make it easier for unhappy owners to sack their office-bearers and remove members from their committees.

But, as anyone who has spent five minutes in a dysfunctional strata scheme will tell you, when people want power – I mean, really want it – the first thing do when they get it is to make sure they never lose it.

I’ve been saying for years that Fair Trading and its counterparts in other states should offer a template for standing orders, aka guidelines for conducting meetings, that schemes can alter and adopt to suit their purposes. You can access it in a column from 2018 HERE.

Meanwhile, we can only assume that the unenforceable new laws are suggestions on how to behave, rather than obligations. And I think a law that can’t be enforced is possibly worse than no law at all.

Not only is it a waste of time, energy and brains space as the disgruntled try to work out ways to make it stick, it undermines the whole point of laws and by-laws.

If Joe or Jo Strata see people getting away with ignoring one by-law or regulation, then they may feel entitled to breach those that don’t suit them and see what happens.

File these laws under “helpful suggestions” or add some penalties and performance criteria to give them real teeth rather than apologetic smiles.

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