Councillor Chris Harris

Chris Harris has dismissed the draft Strata Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 as falling well short of what is needed to provide adequate legislative protection for unit owners and long term tenants against unfair practices by non resident investors and developers.

The rapidly increasing number of people who live in apartments deserve more than the draft Bill is offering. Their apartment is their home and they want to have adequate control over their living conditions just like everyone else.

In a submission to the Strata Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, Clr Harris lists ineffective dispute resolution, barriers to the ability of executive committees to have building defects remedied and the lack of legislative assistance for executive committees to collect unpaid levies and sanction bad behaviour, as three major inadequacies of the present law. None of these shortcomings are addressed in the draft Bill.

The proposed amendments to the legislation don’t go far enough and have done little to help those who live in strata title developments. The law will continue to give too much power to developers and the real estate agents who manage apartments for non-resident investors unless these commonly occurring problems are sorted out.

Clr Harris would also like to see the office of a Strata Ombudsman set up for this fast growing type of housing, and the government needs to have a look at setting up the licensing of building managers, possibly administered by the Ombudsman.

His submission highlights issues that urgently need to be addressed. Hopefully the Minister for Fair Trading, Linda Burney, will take note of the latest round of submissions and not continue to favour developers and real estate agents over the rights and legitimate needs of apartment dwellers.
strata-submission.pdf