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Latest strata reforms allow for maintenance crackdowns

The next tranche of NSW strata reforms will increase Fair Trading’s powers around building maintenance, benefiting strata managers, insurers and property owners affected by delayed repairs, industry stakeholders heard last week.

The powers taking effect later this year will allow the regulator to intervene on breaches of repair and maintenance responsibilities.

Management agency Premium Strata’s CEO Leanne Habib says issues arise when owners’ corporations defer action due to costs or individual owners delay repairs that would benefit other lot owners.

Ms Habib told an Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance webinar the new powers will let the regulator investigate and issue compliance notices.

“They will be using it, I think, in extreme circumstances where they feel an owners’ corporation is not taking reasonable steps,” she said.

Related article: More NSW strata reforms kick in

Strata underwriter CHU’s CEO Kimberley Jonsson says the change should help ensure commonsense decisions are made when there is dissension.

“From an insurance perspective, the failure to maintain, and the failure to get a decision to maintain, really exacerbates the issues with a building,” she said.

“It really can ... affect insurability over time and affects premiums over time as well.”

NSW is making a raft of strata reforms, with more stringent transparency and disclosure requirements already introduced.

More changes took effect this month and a further round is scheduled to begin later this year.

Under changes made this month, an owner has six years, up from two, to bring damages claims against an owners’ corporation if it has failed to maintain and repair common property.