› Flat Chat Strata Forum › The Professionals › Major flaws in the standard Strata Management Agency Agreement? › Current Page
More good news. I had skimmed over the section on strata management contracts in the proposed changes to strata laws and regulations because it stated there was no need to have a prescriptive strata management contract, as there is for residential rents).
However, it has opened the door to changes making the contracts fairer. This is what it says:
Having considered the feedback, the review considers that prescribing a standard form agreement in legislation at this point may not be necessary and notes that the PSA Act does not impose standard form agency agreements on other agents regulated under that Act (real estate agents and stock and station agents).
There are other ways to improve the regulation of contractual arrangements. Moreover, based on the feedback received, it appears that the key driver for much of the support for standard agreements is a concern with what are perceived to be unfair clauses in some strata managing agency agreements.
It was suggested to the review by several stakeholders including the Law Society, ACSL, UDIA and PICA, that instead of prescribing a standard form agency agreement, terms of concern could be addressed through a prohibition on their inclusion in management contracts.
This latter approach is already in place through Schedule 14 of the PSA Regulation and ensures a baseline level of protection and consistency for contracts without being overly prescriptive. A project to remake the PSA Regulation has recently commenced and is due to be completed by 1 September 2022. The remake process will involve the broader examination of the provisions under Schedule 14 and provides an ideal opportunity for an exploration of the inclusion of any additional mandatory or prohibited terms in Rules of Conduct.
Recommendation
65. The inclusion of additional mandatory or prohibited terms for strata management agency agreements should be considered as part of the remake of the Property and Stock Agents Regulation in 2022.
It will be interesting to see what those mandatory inclusions and exclusions turn out to be.