Tenants will enjoy greater rights under the Unit Titles Amendment Bill 2008, with hearings officially set to commence next Tuesday (31 March 2009).
The controversial Bill aims to give unit owners, tenants and managing agents of body corporate properties better consumer protection and access to faster, cheaper and less-legalistic dispute resolution through the newly founded ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT).
Tenants’ Union ACT spokesperson Deb Pippen said that while the Bill didn’t go as far as the union would have liked, the requirement to be ‘reasonable’ would go a long way in upholding tenants’ rights.
“Tenants are now able to feel confident that there’s somewhere they can go to resolve issues,” Ms Pippen said.
However, property management groups are less pleased with the Bill, and have criticised key points in the new legislation.
“The problem is that it pushes the expense of resolving unit title consumer protection issues directly onto the unit plan developers,” said Property Council ACT Executive Director Catherine Carter in a press release.
The new legislation, backed by ACT Planning Minister Andrew Barr, attempts to stop tenants and small unit owners being exploited by unscrupulous developers.
“It is also designed to stop disputes on issues such as noise levels, permission to keep pets, parking, repair and damage of individual and common property … ending up in the Magistrates court,” Mr Barr said in a press release.
Unfortunately, instead of possibly ending up in the Magistrate’s Court, all disputes must now go through ACAT, one disgruntled property manager* said.
“It gives more rights to tenants, less to unit owners,” the property manager said.
“You can’t issue a breach notice without going through ACAT, and if you send a tenant more than three letters, the tenant can claim harassment and take you to ACAT."
The property manager said that all disputes would now have to go through ACAT, creating more paperwork and delaying every point of operation.
Most amendments in the Bill will come into effect on Tuesday (31 March 2009) but ACAT has already overseen several hearings, with two decisions already published on their website.
* For professional reasons, the property manager has asked to remain anonymous.
