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Try asking them also what applies to strata schemes inside the 8 LGAs.
The updated Customer Service website says that inside the 8 LGAs of concern, the “2 workers same room” practice is strongly recommended. It does not make sense as a rule or recommendation.
Outside the 8 LGAs of concern:
- residential premises includes common property;
- the object and purpose of the rule is to enable contactless work (any work);
- the ordinary meaning of the words in context necessarily imply it applies to apartments only and any other interpretation is absurd (in a legal sense);
- this leave OCs back with the previous restrictions (prescribed and necessary) for Common Property; and
- all residents and workers exposed to variety of workers (or all types not just tradies) coming in an out of the building;
- there is no requirement for testing or vaccination and no obligation on the owner to check
If you add to this:
- no mask mandate until weeks after other closed indoors areas (unlike Melbourne)
- no QR or plan prompts for strata (visitors and workers) (unlike other premises and entities)
- no direction on indoor recreation facilities (unlike Melbourne, Toronto)
- no directions to put up poster, install sanitizer (unlike Toronto)
its a disappointing performance when apartment dwellers are at high risk of infections from others, visitors and workers and are part of the population the PHOs are intended to protect.
It cannot be solved unless NSW applies PHO directions directly to OCs and common property as well as individuals or business entities.
The contracts of the BM and SM need to be reviewed and alternative service providers found. It would be advisable to take legal advice from a good quality experienced strata lawyers .
It sounds like you also need by laws against the dumping and allocating costs of removal to the owner of the lot. It shouldn’t be necessary but this is the way that OC govern their own buildings.
For all this, take legal advice so you have the right strategy and it all clearly dealt within the strata law framework and you can achieve your goal. It will take time to resolve. In many cases people dump because they sees others doing it and don’t really know what else to do – so combined governance with information about where to take unwanted items, or a ‘take your junk’ service so people know they can in fact get their rubbish removed
Finally, most people are apathetic until they understand they are paying for something in their levies which is not their cost. This is an individual responsibility and individual cost.
The Local Council should be made aware of the problem, as it is possibly a public health issue. Be aware however that many Local Councils will be happy that dumping and disposal is being handled by the OC. In fact, there is so much illegal dumping by tenants in some LGAs (esp.Waverly) this may be seen as a solution to their problem. From memory at one point, that council explored the option of passing the cost to OC and the OC to pass to the occupier/host. That is not a path you should go down.
Cheers
As someone who is ‘in the room’ I can tell your readers that all the stakeholders including Owners Corporation Network of Australia Pty Ltd, Local Government NSW, the real estate, property investor and holiday letting industry stakeholders have all supported an lobbied for a registration system. The truth is that it is ONLY Airbnb who has its nose out of joint.
There is bi partisan support for a general registration system in the Parliament and across all the stakeholders. The fact is that we now have a Minister who understands there are legitimate regulatory and compliance issues. The public interest is served by doing what most other countries do. It is not a big deal….unless you want to profit from illegal STRA.
This is democracy at work and that is what it means to be part of a community.
There is an exercise often given to new law students where the lecturer gives the class a few facts and asks the students for their opinion. Then a few more facts are revealed and the class is asked again and so the exercise goes on in this fashion until all the facts are revealed. The students have the experience of gaining a deeper understanding of the entire situation and shifting their perspective. This doesn’t mean that they ‘swopped sides’ it means that instead of rushing to judgment they learn to investigate all the facts and consider those facts in the context of the law and policy.
The guard against poor quality decision making is committees that are open and transparent and understand their role is to discharge their duties in the interests of the owners corporation as a whole. But it is not just committees that benefit from information, education and training. Sadly, some personalities are unable to accept when they are wrong or that their claim is ill conceived. It is far too easy to then throw around language of being ‘bullied’ because we are personally hurt, embarrassed or frustrated of not getting our own way. Not all claims are meritorious.
Airbnb withholding consumer identity makes a mockery of their touted transparency and trust ‘ethos’, what is the point of their verification and ID system if they still permit this practice? It shows just how little regard they actually have their ‘host/provider’. They just want to clip the ticket and get that booking, regardless.
In any event, how can parties form a contract if their identities are unknown – isn’t this elementary contract law? I doubt I could, as a matter of law, even grant a ‘right to occupy’ to an unknown party. Try that in a hotel, and see how far you get.
It makes a mockery of any Code of Conduct, and By Laws, what are they…notification of who is in occupation is rendered meaningless and who has the keys – Donald Duck?
This is the kind of thing that will make agencies like MadeComfy, Airsorted more attractive to hosts. Its puts a third party between them and the consumer, so they can shift liability and not bother with those pesky ‘guests’.
Is this the practice of other operators like Booking.com etc.
What a mess.
Join OCN.
Mezzo
In my experience very few people are so intolerant that they don’t think there should be any noise at all – in fact I have never met such a person. I also dont think its all about age – this is a common prejudice and it suggests that anyone who is not living with children is inherently intolerant or becomes so.
If the complaint is about loud shouting and screaming then, in my view, it is self evident that this type of behaviour will cause an interference with the rights of others. It is because is causing a repeated disturbance that it is being brought to your attention and admire your effort to find a way through.
Don’t forget that many people say nothing and suffer, are unhappy, will have failed to get any action, don’t want to be regarded as whingers or face the irrational responses. If it happens very occasionally it is just unfortunate ce la vie, but this sounds like a pattern and level of disturbance that will drive people indoors and impact on their ability to just live in their homes in the normal way.
Noise and disturbance that is repeated causes a great deal of stress and distress is harmful to peoples’ health, it is not just a simple issue of someone being ‘intolerant’. This is why we have well established noise pollution laws, and Council’s have set standards that they apply to commercial facilities that impact on neighbourhood and residential living etc.
In the built in environment there are usually problems of amplification, and unless there are sound barriers this already loud noise will be travelling up and outward and being projected into peoples homes. It will be more than one or two homes affected. I lived next door to a regular family with a pool, that was used daily but at ground level this was not a problem – it was at sufficient distance and the fence created a sound barrier. This does not exist in strata environments and some are worse than others. In a recent beach house with little between us and the sea there was no sound of the ocean at all at the ground level and on the level one balcony it absolutely roared (wonderful).
Effective parental supervision includes ameliorating loud shouting and screaming because, to be frank, any child over six understands that there are some limits and it is self evident that this will interfere with other people. Excited play is great, but if it is unrestrained cacophony of noise repeated on frequent basis – well you get the picture.
It doesn’t really matter what the ‘number’ is on the sound meter – the Council standard is generally 5 bd above the baseline as the limit. But of course your sound meter cannot measure the complexity of repeated loud shouting and screaming, the nature of the sound, the pitch and penetration etc etc and as this is an area that will attract people it will not be a single instance of one 11 year old girl and the occasional scream.
Like I said – it is self evident. You should not underestimate the impacts and residents and their committees on estate with pool should not be afraid to assert standards, and you cannot put a simple number on that.
It is unfortunate that many (not all) parents do seem to think an area like a common shared Pool is a place they can make as much rowdy noise as they please regardless. There is nothing unreasonable or oppressive about being required to moderate the behaviour of our children in public and it is vital to establish this a norm in high density residential communities – that is not anti-child it is pro community.
Good luck.
In a bizarre move, North Sydney Council has referred the STHL to the North Sydney Regional Organisation of Council’s (NSROC) for a ‘regional project’ meaning – legislative and policy work.
The timing couldn’t worse, NSROC has no Board yet(due to Council elections) and no special policy expertise on this topic. Why refer to NSCROC now – why hasn’t NSCROC been engaged on this issue over the past two years?
As someone said……everyone is ducking for cover.
Local Council know that STHL is having adverse impacts, why aren’t they on the media hook on this issue?
Perhaps its time we all shifted our gaze to WA, and the Court of Appeal decision in Byrne v the Owners of Ceresa River Apartments(June 2017). In that case, the WA Court of Appeal upheld by laws that prohibited short term letting in a residential apartment block in a mixed zone. In essence, the Court found that the by law was not an interference with the right to alienate the property but a permissible restriction on use.
This case doesn’t seem to have had much if any coverage in NSW, and as the legislation is identical it puts a stake in the ground for NSW strata owners I believe. Personally, I have always thought that the power to make by laws for the administration, management, control of the use of a Lot permits such a prohibition and this case confirms that view albeit in WA and not NSW.
We need a test case in NSW to confirm that a licence to occupy on a short term basis is not a dealing in the Lot. But even without one in NSW this case demonstrates that the bald faced statements of NSW Fair Trading and the Minister are likely to be entirely wrong. It was calculated to create doubt and fear from a minister and an agency that just doesn’t want to deal with the issues.
What makes this WA case even more interesting is that the City of Belmont had given permission for the Lot owner to change the use of their Lot into a serviced apartment. The DA was made subject to owner having any other permissions that may be required, including the permission of the Owners Corporation.
AirBnB is desperate to crack the strata market and will fight us all the way but with affordability and security of tenure issues and the resentment of strata residents….. the NSW Government would be completely stupid to ignore OC. We live here….and we Vote.
Background – I live on a luxury estate, no Minister is going to tell me that I don’t have a say about short term letting. No one here is struggling to make ends meet, and when a majority of 300 owners say they don’t want it anywhere on their Estate – that is how it is going to be. Just as NSW Government cannot deal with the increasing use of STL, nor will it be able to control or deal with strata communities because who stand up against selfish owner who want to exploit our good will, our privacy, and our financial contribution. When you buy into strata, you buy property but you also buy into a statutory contract and the benefits of an entire estate and its reputation and amenity. No one in their right mind would buy into a strata that doesn’t have a by law prohibiting STL….it would just be a dumb thing to do.
Thank you Millie, I am aware that short term letting is not a residential lease under the NSW RTA. Thankfully, the NSW legislation is clear on this point.
The real point I was trying to make is a more technical one but, in my view, an important one that goes to the character of the short term letting agreement, and the scope of subsection 139 (2).
It is arguable (is it not) that a short term letting agreement is simply a licence to occupy . It is a contract for an accommodation service, but is at the will of the property owner. The consumer can be asked to leave at any time or the booking cancelled with nothing more than some low level consumer protection.
As such a licence to occupy is not a ‘dealing’ in property because it does not create any legal or equitable interest in the property.
If this is correct, and a license to occupy is not a dealing in property, subsection 139(2) has no application to short term letting and does not prevent an OC from passing a by law that explicitly addresses this topic.
The only question is whether a by law is consistent with the zoning law. Thus for example, in North Sydney, the LEP does not permit this type of short term letting in residential areas. We are opposed to it on our estate, but are concerned that we will suffer retrospective lose of our rights to residential amenity under the existing LEP – not to mention the myriad issues associated with shared car parks, shared recreation facilities, etc. etc. etc.
This is an excellent discussion but could one or more of the legal teams please express their view on whether a short term let via a platform like AirBnB is just a license to occupy and does not create any legal or equitable interest in the property? Is it possible that short term letting is neither a lease nor a type of ‘other dealing’ and falls outside the scope of s 139 (2)?