Written by With International borders set to reopen imminently, Owners Corporations will be back to regulating short-term rental accommodation (STRA) arrangements in their scheme.
Importantly, in April 2020, s 137A of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW) commenced that states that a by-law a) may prohibit a lot being used for the purpose of a STRA if it is not the principal place of the owner/occupier and b) has no force or effect to the extent which it purports to prevent a lot being used for the purposes of a STRA if the lot is the principal place of residence of the owner/occupier. This section was intended to commence alongside the STRA Code of Conduct, which was only implemented on 1 November 2021.
The key obligations arising from the Code are that a premises will need to be registered on the premises register before it can be advertised. Additionally, hosts are required to make the Owners Corporation aware that the premise will be used as a STRA, provide their own or their authorised representative’s contact details and provide guests with a copy of the STRA code and any by-laws in force for the strata or community scheme.
Failure to comply with the code could mean that the host ends up on the ‘exclusion register,’ which is a register kept by the Commissioner for Fair trading in the NSW Department of Customer Service.