Delay in the release of new draft owners’ corporation legislation now cause for concern

It has now been six months since the private consultancy acting on behalf of Consumer Affairs Victoria and the Expert Panel leading an inquiry into the owners’ corporation legislation delivered its final report and recommendations to Parliament.

And the silence is deafening.

It seems that no-one in the industry has the foggiest clue as to what is contained within it. Usually there is at least a little gossip that flutters here and there, to reassure those in the industry that there are big changes coming.

The fact that the usual suspects (those who are usually “in the know”) do not in fact know anything about it, is cause for concern.

Those who have followed the subject are keenly aware that the legislation in Victoria for owners’ corporations (OCs) trails the other states and territories.

The current legislation is an outdated mishmash, amended and re-written and re-drawn by too many different legislators with too many different pens. Judges in the State’s courts have remarked that to embark on a judicial interpretation of the OC is to embark on a course of utter frustration, such is its inconsistencies.

OC managers, committee members and lot owners alike, are united that the legislation needs to be completely blown up and redrafted, to bring Victoria into the 21^st century with simple, clear and concise legislation.

Consumer Affairs Victoria certainly does have form for causing delays in prior legislative amendments to the Owners’ Corporations Act.

After lengthy public consultation and enquiry in 2015 and 2016 which culminated in a confidential report, Parliament did not get around to enacting much-needed amendments for five years, until 2021. By the time they were passed into law and became operative, the legislative amendments were by then already out of date and were in desperate need of being re-drawn.

The fact that we are still waiting five years later, for the fixes to the 2021 legislation does not give us hope at all.

Much stock has been placed on the upcoming Victoria elections later this year. Some commentators suggest that Labour is just waiting until “election mode” begins before it unveils its large reforms to the strata sector. I’m not so sure.

The longer this delay continues, the more inclined I am to the view that the Victorian Parliament doesn’t know what to do with the OC sector and would rather stick the report in the “too hard” basket for another year or two, and hope that someone else will do it instead of them.

It’s hard to argue against that logic. Why else would the Victorian Parliament not just pick up the report, and table it in Parliament for all to see? •