Do tenants have rights?

Wow.  It’s 2015 and we still get this old chestnut?  

OK, a tenant doesn’t get to vote (unless they have been made a proxy by the owner) but they can stioll raise issues about the running of their building if they affect them.

Fair Trading and the Tribunal consider tenants “interested parties” which means you have the right not just to complain but to take the Owners Corporation to Fair Trading and the Tribunal on a whole range of matters, if you believe they are not abiding by the strata Act or their own by-laws. 

For instance, if a balustrade is loose and presents a danger and, as in these circumstances, the landlord isn’t approachable, then you can go to the authorities with an action requiring the Owners Corp to fulfill its duties and fix the common property.

Chapter 5 of the NSW Act lists all the matters that can be considered by the tribunal and who can raise them.  

Having said all that, by faqr the best route to take is to approach the landlord and get them to deal with their strata committee. but if they’re not around, there are still plenty of avenues to explore.  The issues that can be raised directly by tenants include:

• A dispute or complaint about an exercise of, or a failure to exercise, a function conferred or imposed by the Act or by-laws 
• A dispute or complaint about the operation, administration or management of a strata scheme under the Act
• To require owners corporation to carry out window safety device functions
• To require the removal of animal wrongly kept on lot
• To allow a person to keep animal on lot
• To remove animal causing nuisance or hazard
• To terminate a nuisance, hazard or unreasonable nuisance caused by animal
• To refrain from breaching restriction on use of a utility lot