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Please carefully read the model by-laws for Children Playing on Common Property both for existing schemes and new schemes.
The necessity of adult supervision of children playing on common property is only on common property comprising a laundry, car parking area or other area of possible danger or hazard to children.
Therefore all areas not within the categories stated do not require adult supervision. A lawned area of common property is unlikely to be a hazardous or dangerous to children therefore would not require adult supervision.
One of the significant changes to strata legislation in NSW is Section 139(1).
Section 139(1) provides:
A by-law must not be harsh, unconscionable or oppressive.
This is a new requirement. If a by-law is harsh, unconscionable or oppressive, then owners and occupiers may (depending upon its terms) be entitled to simply ignore it entirely, or at least ignore those parts that are harsh, unconscionable or oppressive.
By-laws aimed at reducing insurance premiums are now legally required to consider balancing that with the needs of their child residents.
‘As more children spend entire childhoods in strata schemes, we are going to have to think through these issues properly. We are going to have to stop using the simplistic assumption that so long as a rule has been voluntarily agreed to by the appropriate majority, it is a valid rule.
Like all property law, bylaws do not regulate land, they regulate people’s use of land, and amount to a power to regulate people’s lives. We cannot allow private citizens to regulate other people’s lives guided solely by their own self-interest. For children living in adult-dominated schemes, that is a recipe for disaster.’
Extract from ‘Strata laws should take care of children who call apartments home’ written by Dr Cathy Sherry who is a Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, UNSW and the author of Strata Title Property Rights: Private governance of multi-owned communities (Routledge, London, 2016).
Re Nuisance –
The legal definition of ‘nuisance’ is very different from the everyday meaning. For a noise to be construed as a nuisance’ it needs to be:
- frequent or persistent
- something a reasonable person with no particular sensitivity would be affected by.
- out of context or unanticipated (e.g. neighbours walking past your front door talking loudly may not count – even though it may be loud and intrusive)
- documented with substantial evidence of some sort