Tasmania Recap – Autumn 2021

In Tasmania, our industry is unregulated, and the legislation is rarely enforced. Very few people here understand strata, and it has a bad reputation. My goal is to raise awareness and make changes to make strata living all it can be.

It is estimated that 90% of bodies corporate in Tasmania are inactive. Of these, the vast majority of owners would be separately insured. Not only is this in breach of our legislation, there’s a significant risk of gaps in cover – the body corporate is not insured, and in some cases the units or common property would not be insured either. Some insurers offer insurance, but their policies don’t cover the body corporate or strata units/common property. It is only a matter of time until we see an uninsured total loss or public liability claim, which would be devastating both emotionally and financially for all involved.

SCA, together with CHU, is preparing a marketing campaign to alert owners to the risks associated with separate insurance, and also extol the benefits of using a strata manager I am also working with the associations of other professionals who deal with strata, to find ways to work together to overcome the challenges we face. I am planning a working group session for representatives of each association to talk about their challenges and what they’d like to see change.

• Expertise in a complex and legalistic industry 

• One neutral point of contact for anything thing that comes up 

• Understanding of the by-laws and how they apply 

• Enforcement of the by-laws if issues arise 

• Compliance with the legislation 

• Management of the strata insurance – also complex and legalistic 

• Affordability – we don’t charge much for all that we do 

• Sinking funds – we encourage bodies corporate to start building up funds for future capital maintenance

There are many benefits of having the whole development insured on one policy

• Peace of mind – strata policies are designed to protect owners of strata title units, bodies corporate and the common property 

• Simplicity – good insurance brokers or good strata insurers understand strata titles and what is required to protect them. 

• Its usually cheaper to one strata insurance policy (owners should always seek advice from their insurance professional about what other insurance they require)

• If there’s a claim that involves more than one unit and the common property, there will only be one insurance company to deal with – one claim, one excess, one assessor, one builder.

There has also been some progress with the changes to the legislation. I recently met with the Recorder of Titles and I was really happy to hear him talk about the impact of the legislation and things that go wrong on people’s lives. I think that should underpin everything we do.

The Consultation Feedback report has been finalised, and a bill will be drafted for review. The Recorder plans to continue to consult with professionals who work in the strata industry and will introduce regulations based on those discussions to institute change while we work through the changes to the legislation.