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Strata Reform Update

  • May 12, 2016

Strata Reform Update

Landgate has released the latest update on Strata Reform.

Currently the Strata Titles Act 1985 does not refer to strata managers or set out standards of behaviour for servicing and managing a scheme.

Landgate’s strata reforms will improve the management of strata by:

  • making strata managers more accountable
  • simplifying management processes
  • strengthening by-law enforcement
  • improving the maintenance of schemes.

Strata managers will be regulated by imposing statutory duties. Those duties include for the strata manager to act honestly and in good faith, to keep records of functions performed and to hold the strata company’s funds in a trust account.

These duties will be enforced by empowering the strata company to terminate the strata manager contract, if the strata manager breaches one of these duties and does not fix the breach.

Management processes will be simplified by enabling strata companies to keep records, serve notices, hold meetings and vote using electronic means.  Reforms will also make it easier for the strata company to install solar panels and other sustainable infrastructure by passing a special resolution if that is what the majority of owners want. 

Further recommendations allow owners who are present at a strata meeting to declare a quorum 30 minutes after the meeting starts, so the strata company can function efficiently.

More information on management reforms can be found on the Landgate  web pages along with a short video.

In conjunction with management reforms, Landgate has recommended a more simplified dispute resolution process.

Currently strata disputes are heard in four different legal forums. Dispute resolution conditions within the Act are also quite restrictive and commonly misunderstood.

Reforms will make the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) the one-stop-shop for strata disputes.  SAT’s powers will be broadened to efficiently resolve strata disputes and to resolve disputes between strata managers and strata companies. For example, SAT’s current limit on making a monetary order against a person in a strata dispute is $1,000. This will be increased to $75,000. SAT will also be empowered to make, amend or repeal by-laws and resolutions.

See more detail on clearer and easier ways to resolve disputes.

Find out more about strata reforms on the Landgate website landgate.wa.gov.au/stratareform