One-sided SM contracts exposed… yet again

Shortcrust wrote:

Surely ultimate blame for the appalling contracts lies not with the dodgy outfit called (chuckle, chuckle) the strata community association but with politicians who have the power to bring in changes or bring the SCA to heel.

Whenever the government sets out to change strata law, the first body they consult is the SCA.  When the current sidelined Property Services (and now Strata) Commissioner held round table meetings on policy, he would be flanked on one side by the National President of the SCA and on the other by the NSW President of the body.

The politicians’ problem is that they can’t see who else would administer their laws so they accede to most of the demands of the SCA which has, over the years, convinced them that strata would fall apart if they weren’t there to keep a tight rein on it.

However, if strata was brought under basic consumer law – which the SCA wuld fight tooth and nail to prevent – all these dodgy dealings would be exposed and expunged.

But the real reason politicians don’t keep a tighter control on strata is that most of them don’t live in strata, heve never served on committees and consider strata as an inferior form of housing.

You just have to look at the initial deliberations on control of Airbnb, where the chair of the NSW committee noted that short-term holiday lets would have a profound effect on the quality of life for strata residents but that wasn’t significant enough to merit limiting this commercial enterprise.