Here's some top tips if you're thinking of investing in bricks and mortar.
- Queensland unit owners could face forced sales
- Strata expert Jimmy Thomson’s Flat Chat column
- Things that drive you nuts about strata living
Bans on pets, restrictions on smoking, the right to tow rogue parkers’ cars and body corporates being able to issue their own fines for by-law breaches are all included in radical changes proposed for Queensland’s strata laws.
Easier ways of recovering unpaid levies, by-laws being included in sales and rental documents, and a majority of owners being able to force their neighbours to sell the entire block for redevelopment are also floated in the review being considered by the state government.
Radical changes are proposed for Queensland’s strata laws. Photo: Danny Watkins/EyeEm
The most controversial issues in the proposals to update the Body Corporate and Community Management (BCCM) Act were not, as might be suspected, forced sales of apartment in older buildings to clear the way for new developments.
Instead, it was smoking and pets that generated the most submissions to the report commissioned by the state government from Queensland University of Technology’s commercial and property law research centre.
Unit owners face tough changes under the proposed laws. Photo: Robert Shakespeare
So what are the proposals and how will they affect current and future apartment and community residents in Queensland?
The smoking and pets issues have been deemed so contentious that they have inspired a new kind of “super by-law” (our term) that requires a much higher threshold of approval than normal.
The report proposes that body corporates should be allowed to create a super by-law banning anyone from smoking in a way or in an area where the smoke may drift into another person’s unit, affecting them. There is no proposal to allow bans on smoking per se.
Buildings will also be allowed to have super by-laws banning pets. At the moment schemes can’t legally ban pets but they can have rules governing the way pets behave and are managed.
So what is a “super by-law”? Normal by-laws can be passed by two-thirds of the vote at a meeting, provided 25 per cent of owners don’t object. These super by-laws would need to be passed “without dissent” – i.e. no votes against – or be part of new buildings’ by-laws before anyone has bought in.
That level of approval is the same as required for selling off common property. The effect could be that existing buildings would find it hard to change but new buildings can be pet-free or smoke-restricted from day one.
Cartoon: John Shakespeare
Speaking of by-laws, it’s recommended that they form part of the sales and rental documentation for apartments and that they are treated as binding contracts between owners, tenants and the body corporate.
On parking, body corporates will have the right to tow residents’ cars parked illegally on common property – currently it’s only non-residents’ vehicles that they are clearly allowed to tow.
This would require appropriate signage and warnings. However, the new laws would not cover owners who park illegally in another owners’ spaces.
The recommended process on forced sales is long and detailed but a majority of 75 per cent of owners will be able to compel the other 25 per cent to sell provided they can make a strong financial argument as to why they should do so. It’s discussed in detail in this article.
Instant fines are also on the cards. Under the proposed new laws, body corporates will be able to directly fine residents up to two penalty units ($243.80) for by-law breaches if they ignore an official warning letter.
The fines will be paid direct to the body corporate and if naughty tenants don’t pay up, the debt will be transferred to the landlord, giving them an added incentive to control the behaviour of their tenants. Alleged miscreants will still be able to appeal to the BCCM Commissioner.
One radical move to counter absentee landlords leeching off their neighbours by not paying levies, fees or fines, means body corporates will be able to garnishee the income from their rented properties until the debts are cleared.
But there are no plans to allow body corporates to force the sale of properties that are in debt.
None of the proposals, and more, contained in the 84-page government property law review report are set in stone …yet.
Queenslanders have until May 5 to have their say on the plans.