Jimmy Thomson
One of the most frequently employed words bandied around on the TV coverage of the NSW election results was ‘‘renters’’. A big impetus in the Labor win was concern about the cost of living – and for a huge number of strata residents and investors, a significant proportion of that is rent.
For tenants, who make up more than half the state’s strata residents, dwindling availability and increasing demand are squeezing rents relentlessly upwards.
For investors it’s a fundamentally moral dilemma – do you ride the wave of rising rents to maximise the profitability of your property or do you stick with the tenants who have helped you pay off your mortgage for the past few months or years?
This conundrum is not exclusive to NSW. But a new government and minister are about to be installed, and they may have a very different view of the problems from their predecessors.
In appointing Anoulack Chanthivong as Minister for Better Regulation and Fair Trading, Chris Minns has gone back to the tried (and frequently failed) formula of lumping the area that looks after strata with other unrelated portfolios.
The Macquarie Fields MP will also be Minister for Industry and Trade, plus Innovation, Science and Technology, plus Corrections. But perhaps Rose Jackson, as Minister for Housing and Homelessness, will draw strata into her domain.
The ‘‘opportunities’’ the new minister has range from an out-of-control residential rental market to a stuttering strata complaints system, via an unprecedented housing crisis. On top of that, there are Building Commissioner David Chandler’s herculean efforts to clean up the apartment construction industry, removing the corruption and incompetence that predates even the 12 years of Liberal rule.
To be fair, the new Better Regulation minister inherits a system that isn’t broken so much as one that’s no longer fit for purpose. If the Minns government perpetuates a structure where all the myriad moving parts related to residential rents, building construction, strata management and apartment living must compete for attention with broken toys, massage parlours and Easter Show showbags, it will have failed before it starts.
The Labor government may well be relieved it is not being pushed into a corner by the Greens, compelled to enact a ban on ‘‘no fault’’ residential lease terminations. But that doesn’t mean it won’t do it.
Other areas it might want to look at, as a matter of urgency, include the relationship between the explosion of short-term holiday letting and the shortage of residential rentals.
Then there’s the lack of regulation of building services managers. How can they get 10-year contracts when strata managers are limited to three?
And don’t forget the growth of pre-sold management rights and embedded networks. That could be easily fixed if often unfair and financially crippling contracts weren’t being approved at the very first meeting of new and often naive owners of strata apartments.
Also requiring urgent attention is the gulf between Fair Trading’s mediation service and the tribunal system, where strata owners and residents often can’t get the one thing they need – a straight answer to a simple question – without embarking on a financially and emotionally crippling campaign against their neighbours.
One significant step the new government could take would be to support the Owners Corporation Network, which represents strata owners, with substantial guaranteed finances for the next four years, as it does with the Tenants’ Union.
Apartment owners are not the enemy – but they shouldn’t have to be victims.SI
Jimmy Thomson edits the Flat Chat website.