Pet-friendly apartments: The costs faced by owners
Apartment-dwelling pet owners must pay high costs for their four-legged friends.
Gone are the days when owning a pet was enough to ban residents from apartment accommodation, but here to stay are high costs associated with apartment-based pet ownership.
Pet-friendly apartments might not be so pet-friendly after all, with owners still forced to pay up to $300 just to keep a dog or cat under a new NSW tribunal ruling.
The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) ruled that apartment buildings throughout the state could impose financial demands and pet restrictions, with apartment residents sometimes forced to seek permission just to collect their mail with a pet by their side.
Many think that the restrictions are unfair in so-called pet-friendly accommodation.
“Charging owners $300 for permission to keep a pet isn’t any benefit at all to an owner’s corporation, which gas a budget of millions and millions of dollars,” said Bob Roden, who protested the strict requirements in his building. “I argued that such rules were harsh, unconscionable or oppressive, but the tribunal ruled against me.”
It is feared that the ruling could affect a high volume of NSW apartment dwellers, despite newly revised state laws making it illegal to forbid pets in strata buildings. Instead, building owners may impose complex and difficult-to-navigate rules for pet owners, along with monetary costs, justified by time spent processing pet-related permission applications.
Tribunal members argued that the bylaws were necessary to ensure proper management and administration in strata properties and that they were not unjust to pet owners.
Col Myers, accredited specialist in property law and director at Small Myers Hughes, said that bylaws imposing blanket bans on pets in NSW strata building were unreasonable and unenforceable. However, new rulings do not leave the challenges of apartment pet ownership in the past.
“You would think that this legislation is the end of the debate. Owner corporations or committees must reasonably allow pets in strata. However, I don’t believe that it will be the case!” he said.
According to Mr Myers, many NSW strata owner corporations don’t want pets in their properties.
“[They] will go to every length possible to make it difficult for owners to have their pets approved,” he said. “I am sure that many OCs will now start including in their bylaws the ability for the committee to improve expensive application fees for owners applying for pet approvals and to even look at requiring a bond as part of the approval process.”
Legally, corporations and committees must be reasonable in their approval processes, but these processes can still be time-consuming and expensive for pet owners seeking apartment accommodation.
Despite the perceived unfairness of new pet fees in many apartment complexes, most pet owners are prepared to pay the additional costs for sake of their four-legged friends.
“I’m taking it on the chin in good spirit,” said Mr Roden, who decided to pay his $300 fee in order to keep his dog in his apartment.
Other articles:
Loneliness and apartment living: The effect on communities
Pet-friendly accommodation at Crowne Plaza Sydney Darling Harbour
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