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The Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012 and Privacy Regulation 2013 both commenced on 12 March 2014. They represent the most significant changes in the legislation since it was first introduced in 1988. They introduce new requirements, for both privacy policies and associated procedures.

One needs to go back a long way to find legislation greater in scope than what was passed or proposed in 2013, perhaps a century, when the laws setting up our current land title system were passed. The real estate industry has always been heavily regulated, but 2013 saw an unusually large number of changes, many of major significance.

Introduction

In Xabregas v The Owners – Strata Plan No 79205; Moallem v Consumer Trader & Tenancy Tribunal (No 2) [2014] NSWSC 1027 (31 July 2014), the NSW Supreme Court emphasised the high responsibility of a strata manager appointed under section 162 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 1996. The case highlights that a section 162 strata manager must act carefully when acting in the name of the owners corporation especially if the strata manager makes a decision that the owners corporation should sue a lot owner.

With new strata laws expected to commence on 30 November 2016, the first thing for strata managing agents to address is their appointment:

In A Nutshell

1. Following a significant fire in a 23 storey apartment building in Melbourne’s Docklands area on 25 November 2014 (the Lacross Apartments Fire), the rapid spread of which was attributable to a composite aluminium cladding on the building’s façade[1], the Victorian Building Authority has now completed an audit of some 170 high rise buildings in central Melbourne and surrounds with a finding that 51% of the audited buildings contained non-compliant cladding[2].

In A Nutshell

Following the devastating fire that destroyed the Grenfell Tower in London this week, the topic of aluminium cladding has risen across the globe.