Pets and ‘forced sales’ strata laws to change

The move to ban owners corporations from making demands on owners (presumably also on behalf of their tenants) such as fees or bonds or insurance as a condition of having a pet, was clearly not thought out.

Say I get a dog, Rover. And Rover in my absence is taken for walkies daily by a dog walker. Occasionally Rover uses the common property as a latrine. As I am at work, I don’t know what Rover did and if I knew, there is not much I can do from my office, 30 mins way.

So the OC will clean the mess, which will take time and money. Assuming there is someone available to clean it up. Otherwise the mess will stay in place.

In time I am invoiced for the cost of a cleaner or neighbour making good the soiled area. I can collect and ignore invoices until the OC hauls me to NCAT. By then, the bill may be significant, especially for a small scheme.

Surely the correct policy is to have a bond (with the OC or in the case of a tenant, possibly with the apartment owner) of reasonable size and disallow any fee for the OC to “consider” an application.

Also it should be a given that there will be a public listing  of those applying for pets and the result of the application. Otherwise, what I have seen will be rampant: a tenant is found by neighbours to have a dog, with the apartment owner’s consent, but without a formal application process taking place. As the owner is a mate of a SC member, the application process was dispensed with.