New home for growing strata title sector
The peak industry body for strata and community title management in Queensland, Strata Community Australia (Qld) celebrated its new office as it was officially opened by the attorney-general the Jarrod Bleijie last week.
The opening was then followed by the election of five new directors to the board of ten at the succeeding 2014 AGM.
In his address to mark the opening Mr Bleijie was optimistic about the future of the Queensland strata industry and spoke of aims to provide Queensland with a “world-class” property law framework through the QUT property law review. The Queensland University of Technology have been engaged to conduct an independent review of Queensland’s property laws, including the Body Corporate and Community Management Act. Professor William Duncan from the QUT panel was among invited guests to the opening.
The strata title sector has been growing steadily with a 3 per cent increase in lots within the past 12 months. There are now just under 410,000 strata titled lots in Queensland of which 70 per cent are managed by SCA (Qld) members.
“Due to the breadth and complexity of Queensland’s property laws the review is being conducted in stages. The first stage explores legislation around current seller disclosure regimes and lot entitlements. The second stage will examine the Property Law Act 1974 and body corporate governance in community titles schemes” Mr Bleijie said.
Mr Bleijie also mentioned the work of the government to reduce red-tape in a number of areas including passing legislation to repeal and replace the Property Agents and Motor Dealers Act 2000 with four separate industry-specific bills aimed at nearly halving the number of forms required and reducing the number of pages of legislation by 20 per cent.
Last month, parliament also passed legislation aimed at modernising Queensland laws dealing with off-the-plan sales of land and proposed lots in community title schemes. Mr Bleijie said that these changes will benefit consumers by improving pre-contractual disclosure requirements while also reducing red tape in the industry.
The office opening was followed by the SCA (Qld) AGM which resulted in the election of Colin Archer, Andrew Suttie, Michael Hurley, Alan Buckle and Ian D’Arcy as directors. These five directors join board members Simon Barnard, Richard Allard, Kerri Anthon and James Freestun.
