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There is a chronic shortage of affordable housing in NSW. Record property and rental prices have forced people to look for alternative forms of housing and move further away from metropolitan areas, swapping convenience and access to essential services for something more manageable on their budgets.

To alleviate the pressure, the NSW Government has introduced new reforms affecting planning controls within 800 metres, or a 10-minute walk, from171 town centres and railway stations. The changes will allow dual-occupancies, terraces, townhouses and residential flat buildings across Sydney, the Central Coast, Hunter and Illawarra-Shoalhaven regions.

Stage two of the Low and Mid-Rise housing policy, which came into effect on 28 February 2025, abolishes the limitations on terraces, townhouses and low-rise residential flat buildings on R1 and R2 zoned land, and removes the limitation on medium rise residential flat buildings on R3 and R4 zoned land in several local government areas (LGAs).

“Housing is the single largest cost of living pressure people are facing and these changes will deliver more homes for young people, families and workers,” Premier Chris Minns has said.

“This policy fills a gap in new housing supply. Allowing low and mid-rise housing in more locations will help increase the number of homes in our state, improve affordability for renters and buyers and give people a choice on the type of home they want to live in.

Planning Minister Paul Scully says the reforms are about choice. “[A]choice of where (people)want to live, what kind of home they want to live in and when they want to make that move,” said the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully.

However, as the number of people living in high density housing increases, the statistics for strata disputes are also on the rise.

According to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) 2023-2024 Annual Report, residential tenancy and social housing matters are ranked first in the top ten issues by volume in the 2023-2024 period. The report shows that over 52,000 applications were filed in the Consumer and Commercial Division and 1,370 related to strata schemes.

What are strata disputes?

According to Allison Benson, principal at Kerin Benson lawyers, disputes about “anything and everything to do with your home could be described as a strata dispute… there are disputes right across the gamut. It’s not just the disputes about by-laws, and it’s not just disputes about levy recovery. Although they are very, very common.”

Disputes also often arise over repairs and maintenance.  “Water penetration seems to always hit the news because it’s just running rampant. … I’ve had people with mushrooms coming out of their walls, ceiling, floors. I’ve got one person that has a smell of gas … and they’ve … had gas detected in their unit,” says Benson.

When it comes to strata complexes, disputes can often arise over who is responsible for repairs and rectification (including payment) of such issues.

Benson finds there are often two different camps, ranging from those who are more “proactive” and more willing to file a claim with the insurance company if it is storm related damage to those who are less proactive, particularly if the problem is not affecting their lot.

She notes that some insurers do not cover defects or a repair and maintenance issue. “[Insurance will] cover for things like storm damage, so it doesn’t cover all of these issues …

“People don’t know necessarily what their rights are … they rely upon their owner’s corporation and their strata managers to guide them,” she says. Benson explains that problems usually arise where the damage has occurred within a specific lot, but the other lot owners in the owners’ corporation do not care as they have the mindset that the issue is not affecting them. “[B]ut it does, because it’s the common property and it affects everybody. It’s just your home isn’t being made miserable because water is coming through it every time it rains.

“So, there’s kind of a disconnect between owners’ corporation and [the] lot owner,” she says.

What happens if there is a dispute?

For strata lawyers like Benson, there has been a noticeable increase in the amount of work in this space. The start of 2025 has been “horrendously busy, which is kind of good for us, but it’s not good for people living in these types of schemes,” she says.

Benson attributes the increase in strata disputes to a variety of factors including owners’ corporations not being as proactive as they used to be, the cost-of-living crisis, people “tightening their belt,” and the number of people living or working in strata schemes.

Levy recovery remains the most common form of strata dispute and Benson attributes it to being directly related to the cost-of-living crisis. “Strata levies are like death and taxes, you can’t get out of them … but that’s definitely a direct effect on the cost-of-living crisis. Repairs and maintenance … those disputes have gone up,” she says.

Furthermore, as a result of the wild weather events that have occurred in NSW in recent times, the cost of insurance policies has also increased, leading to increased strata levies. “Insurers have been paying out a lot in terms of lost rent, repairing storm related damage … Policies have increased … [around] 20 – 30 per cent which is huge,” says Benson.

While disputes will inevitably occur, Benson explains there are different ways to resolve it. For instance, if the dispute relates to a repair or maintenance issue or where there is a water leak, the owners’ corporation can file and make a claim under insurance. However, if the owners’ corporation is unwilling to make an insurance claim, the next step is mediation with Fair Trading, which is a free service. Finally, if the matter is still not able to be resolved or no agreement is reached, then an application can be made to NCAT.

Benson says while it is possible for people to go to NCAT themselves, it can become technical if you start getting experts involved.

In her experience, the most effective method of resolving a strata dispute is to bring the issue home for the other lot owners. She urges lot owners to get people talking about what the issue is and why it is a problem that affects everybody. “[S]how the other lot owners, take the videos, invite them into your unit when the water is coming in, and that tends to have results because if people see it, they can empathise,” she says.

Benson acknowledges that sharing and discussing the problem is the number one method to resolve the dispute because most strata disputes don’t go to NCAT. “It’s only the ones where you’ve got obstinate parties on one hand and potentially obstinate parties on the other hand when people get entrenched in their views or just desperate because nothing is being done,” she says.