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Topic
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Most of us are familiar with the difficulty in managing overcrowding, with is largely dependant on the co-operation of all involved, setting aside their vested interests.
I was wondering whether an arrow to the bow could be the targeting of advertising. Fulfillment of overcrowded apartments is largely conducted through advertisements on various websites. Some are more explicit than others, ranging from actual addresses, email, phone, phone, tenant name and explicit acknowledgement of overcrowding through to proxies/agents, nicknames, “anonymous” email addresses etc. Price is usually the only common factor from which you can reasonably judge how many occupants you can expect.
Is it illegal for a tenant(or their agents) to advertise over occupancy and/or would a by-law to that effect hold any validity? I am not looking for a legality that will wind your way through the justice system, just an indication that it is enforceable and could be used as a tool for the removal of tenants who overcrowd. To my mind this will assist in overcoming one of the hurdles in prosecuting overcrowding, physical evidence. With notice usually required for tenants many attempts to sight physical evidence are effectively neutered(often with the assistance of compliant agents).
I appreciate some prosecutions may end up in a bun fight at the CTTT but to my mind it would be a reasonably effective weapon where these people are most exposed ie outside their apartments explicitly advertising on websites
Any experiences to this effect would be appreciated
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Replies
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Martyn asked….. Is it illegal for a tenant (or their agents) to advertise over occupancy and/or would a by-law to that effect hold any validity?
To the extent that a Residential Tenancy Agreement (NSW) must show all persons residing at the premises as tenants, and requires those tenants to not permit any additional persons to reside there; YES it would be illegal for a tenant to advertise for additional occupants unless the Owner / Landlord agreed.
In terms of possible over-occupancy, for reasons including fire safety (exiting), vehicular parking, the possible overuse of common facilities, and anything else that could be justified an Owners Corporation (O/C) could validly determine and Register a Special By-Law limiting the maximum numbers of adult persons permitted to occupy any Lot, typically to a number equal to twice the numbers of bedrooms.
Compliance with a Tenancy Agreement is regulated by the NSW Office of Fair Trading and the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) but regrettably an O/C is not a “person” entitled to lodge a Complaint about breaches of those Agreements, however compliance with any Registered By-Law is enforceable by an O/C through the NCAT (incorporating the former Consumer, Trader, and Tenancy Tribunal).
Martyn – I doubt very much that you or your Owners Corporation (O/C) could use the provisions of a Special By-Law of the type discussed to take action against a Tenant / Owner / Agent for merely advertising a vacancy at their premises. In fact in the case of an Owner or their Managing (Rental) Agent advertising, that may be regarded as restricting an Owners’ ability to “deal” with their Lot; something that no By-Law is permitted to do.
As I understand your problem, the best (if not only) approach to preventing the overcrowding of Units within your Plan would be for your O/C to specially resolve to draft and Register a Special By-Law (SBL) of a type outlined in my previous post (#2). Just make sure that its rationale can be fully justified to withstand a challenge, and that’s best achieved by having an experienced Strata Lawyer such as the one who is a sponsor of this site to complete the draft.
In that way, once a Unit is known to be occupied by more adult persons than the SBL permits, and that shouldn’t be too difficult to determine, your Executive Committee or Strata Manager can issue the tenant/s with a Notice to Comply (with the By-Law), and to if necessary follow the NCAT’s procedures for the imposition of a fine should they not comply.
A few other points that may make your O/C’s management of this type of SBL a little easier……
1) The provisions of Sect 119 of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (SCMA) requires the Owner or their Managing Agent to provide the O/C with the names of all tenants (i.e. legal occupants) shown on a Tenancy Agreement, so your E/C will be aware of the names of the tenants for inclusion on any Notice to Comply; and,
2) Clause 35 of the Tenancy Agreement requires the Owner or their Managing Agent to provide a copy of all By-Laws and SBLs to the tenants within 7 days of a Rental Agreement commencing, so none of those could claim that they were unaware of a limitation on the maximum numbers of adult occupants permitted to reside at the premises; and,
3) There’s at least one legal precedent that I know of where the Owner of a Lot has been found equally liable for a breach of By-Laws by their tenant, in circumstances where the O/C had provided that Owner with a copy of the Notice to Comply as issued, and they then did nothing about addressing the breach with their tenant. That may encourage Owners to ensure that their tenants do comply with a SBL of the type suggested – and indeed any other.
@Martyn said:
Most of us are familiar with the difficulty in managing overcrowding, with is largely dependant on the co-operation of all involved, setting aside their vested interests.
I was wondering whether an arrow to the bow could be the targeting of advertising. Fulfillment of overcrowded apartments is largely conducted through advertisements on various websites. Some are more explicit than others, ranging from actual addresses, email, phone, phone, tenant name and explicit acknowledgement of overcrowding through to proxies/agents, nicknames, “anonymous” email addresses etc. Price is usually the only common factor from which you can reasonably judge how many occupants you can expect.
Is it illegal for a tenant(or their agents) to advertise over occupancy and/or would a by-law to that effect hold any validity? I am not looking for a legality that will wind your way through the justice system, just an indication that it is enforceable and could be used as a tool for the removal of tenants who overcrowd. To my mind this will assist in overcoming one of the hurdles in prosecuting overcrowding, physical evidence. With notice usually required for tenants many attempts to sight physical evidence are effectively neutered(often with the assistance of compliant agents).
I appreciate some prosecutions may end up in a bun fight at the CTTT but to my mind it would be a reasonably effective weapon where these people are most exposed ie outside their apartments explicitly advertising on websites
Any experiences to this effect would be appreciatedThis is a very good question that you are asking Martyn however spying on slumlords isn’t the solution but it’s working too.
Think like the slumlords and you will know what to do to stop them.
My company has been fighting Slumlords for more than 4 years and found out what make them go away from a building.
You can manage to find out where are the overcrowded units in your building but it’s going to be a very difficult task. Most of slumlords are advertising on OZI, THai, CHinese, Indo, Korean etc.. classifieds ads websites
You can not find out directly overcrowded units of your buildings on classified ads websites because there is over 1300 slumlords in SYDNEY, many residential buildings, no ads if the slumlords isn’t looking for a new extra tenant, etc…
We do have techniques to find them easily and we know all the tricks but it is costing us over $800 week and more than 10 hours of office work to that. We are still doing it at least 1 week a month from our own pocket money. The council could actually do something very effective costing almost nothing but they don’t listen to our suggestions…
Anyway the matter is that most of buildings are using unsecured security access control, %98 here is SYDNEY, I’m saying 98% not by hazard, we have been walking into every singles buildings of the CBD.
Why buildings are using unsecured systems, some were and are still installed, years after the security leak was discovered?
This is happening because most of security installers in Australia have a big lack of security knowledge. There is no course in security access control that you have to follow to become an installer! Most of security installers are buying security systems without knowing how it works and can’t run any test to find out if it is secure or unsecure!
Building managers and strata managers usually bring their security installer friends to do the job despite the fact that the system that they are or will install is not secure and cannot perform its principal function of guaranteeing the safety of residents.
To give you a clear picture: You have an unsecured access control system in your building so you have slumlords copying the tags for their extra tenants.
If the slumlords can’t supply a tag to his extra tenants then the tenants are not going to stay there.
The problem is also with most of intercom system but it’s another topic.
What i will suggest you is to make sure that no more strata manager and building manager prospect or bring their security installer friend to install anything. Do not use security consultant but only security adviser with a licence.
Building manager or strata manager have no security electronic knowledge thus they should not take any decision about the access control system.
The body corporate should find themselves at least 4 different security installers and find more information about their electronic system instead of looking at what the neighbor is using, if it is cheap or if they big big big installation.
Proper systems are expensive, Having done big installation doesn’t mean anything specially is your installed something unsecured…
Intercom is very important too.
CCTV is out of the conversation knowing that there is no secure or unsecured CCTV system.
If you have any questions PV me.
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