At the end of April this year the NSW Government released the draft Strata Schemes Management Regulation 2016 and draft Strata Schemes Development Regulation 2016 for public comment. As members may recall, SCA (NSW) produced and forwarded a comprehensive submission to the NSW Government.
There were a number of areas of concern for SCA (NSW) in relation to both sets of draft Regulations. Happily many of these have been addressed in the final Regulations such as the reinstatement of the safeguard at Clause 9 (2) against owners stacking the executive committee that had been removed in the draft Regulations.
Finally the long awaited strata reform can commence and the membership needs to embrace the changes that are coming, for instance:
- Meeting attendance by electronic means;
- Dealing with changes to meeting procedures: including tenants;
- Changes to laws concerning the expiry of agency agreements;
- Changes concerning disclosure of commissions, training and prohibition around gifts;
- Dealing with urban renewal;
- Dealing with new provisions concerning renovations, removal of goods and dispute resolutions and a long list of other items.
It is anticipated that all of the reforms will commence on the 30th of November, except for Part 11 of the Act, building defects bond scheme which will commence on 1 July 2017.
A copy of the new Regulations can be accessed here.