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On Friday night's 7.30 on ABC, there was a big feature on overcrowding and sub-letting in Sydney apartment blocks. If you missed it you can view it HERE. Afterwards, a very uncomfortable Premier was nailed on two counts – overcrowding and proxy harvesting. He looked like he'd been ambushed when he was asked about this before an interview about his first 100 days in office. See it HERE.
So the Fair Trading Minister was unavailable and the Director of the CTTT was saying nothing but the premier wants public “consultation”. Well, this is his email address – office@premier.nsw.gov.au – may the consulting begin!
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
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Jimmy,
The responses we are seeing are typical beauracratic buck passing!!!
Doesn’t council enforce the floor space ratios that they set for the initial development of the building??
Auburn Council definitely had no problem issuing fines and orders on owners in a large development in the heart of Auburn where this was previuosly an issue, and for those that still kept up with this act, took them to the L&E Court, as they should have!!
I sat in on a Tribunal matter where the case involved 17 people being in a strata unit in Byron Bay. An owner let the property and the lessee then used the place as a “backpackers” for people looking for cheap, short term, accommodation.
One interesting aspect of the matter was the way the lessee could make good money before the system finally got around to doing anything.
By moving from lease to lease and doing this sort of cramming a person can make quite a good living given the systems inability to address such issues in real time. The lessee had shot through prior to the hearing but would have made quite good money by the time the whole process had got that far.Of further interest was the way the Member viewed the matter. It was a question of fire safety for the Member. Could 17 people be reasonably expected to be able to safely get out of the unit in the event of a fire. No no no.
The slowness of the dispute resolution mechanism of the SSMA is like a host for some parasites to attach themselves to and it is impossible to tell Macquarie St anything.
Billen Ben,
This is just the issue, and it is partly being discussed in the Holiday & Short-term rentals thread… The strata act is not designed to control this issue, but the Council should be proactively managing these issues. The council, when and if they choose to do something can fine owners instantly, and I have seen them take owners to the Land & Environment Court. Otherwise this is a Residential Tenancy matter, in that the lessee has breached the lease etc. The question does get raised, what happened to the regular tenancy inspections?? If the owner/property manager is clever about it, they use to be able to get 4 inspections in during a year. This would surely go a long way to catching this before it got so out of hand.I wonder what would happen if there was a fire in the place ..then they would listen. Perhaps Insurance comapnies should start taking notice as well if they had to pay out to owners .I guess owners dont give a damn unless they are getting payments. The agents are also to blame if they arent checking the place .Also what happens to the Manager of the building..are they handing out 15 sets of keys and swipes to each apartment. This looks like a shambles .If hotels and hostels have maximum number surely this should apply to these units as well. I like the fact Sydney City Council have been smart enough to work out a long term let is best but the Manager should have a copy of the list of tenants and numbers.
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