Changes to short term letting you should know about

The explosion in popularity of short-term stay platforms such as Airbnb caused disruption to strata communities and governments around the world, all of whom were battling to put the right controls and regulatory settings in place to protect the popularity and amenity of apartment living.

New York came down hard on Airbnb. London curtailed it. Sydney and NSW were playing catch up while apartments and shared facilities like BBQs, pools and gyms were being, in some cases, overrun by hordes of tourists and party goers.

After years of campaigning and multiple false starts in NSW, on 10 April 2020, amendments to the Fair-Trading Act 1987, Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 and the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 finally came into effect.

These changes mean owners corporations can adopt by-laws that prohibit short-term rental accommodation in strata schemes - but only where the lot is not the host’s principal place of residence.

This means if someone lives in a strata property as their home, they will still be able to rent out their home, or individual rooms, while they live there or are temporarily away from home, but it will curtail the practice of tenants rent out spare rooms to tourists, or units being bought and used in residential properties for predominantly holiday rentals.

This is a big win for strata communities who have got back their buildings, their personal security, and the shared facilities that they pay for, and came about after a hard fought campaign to convince the NSW Government that something needed to be done.

Strata buildings are mini-communities – you recognise the people who are coming and going, you hold open the door for them and make sure it is closed against others, but the very model is threatened when there is a conga line of tourists coming through the front door – people who you don’t know, and people who care far less about (or even threaten) security because it’s not their home.

Credit where credit is due, the NSW Government turned some attention to this, and to both the list of issues and evidence supporting sensible regulation of short-term letting. People like myself were vocal in the pursuit of regulation, as much as the Airbnb monolith that was against it, and the end result was a sensible compromise.

It’s not a perfect system but it is certainly more perfect than it was going to be. Now the task falls to strata communities to make sure that the strata rules that they want to design and put in place to control short-term stays both do the job and are compliant with the new NSW laws.

I am happy to lend a bit of advice and a hand to any strata community grappling with this.

In the meantime, if you have questions or queries in relation to this or any other strata matter, please do not hesitate to contact us on 02 9233 7700 or smg@goddardsolicitors.com.au