The latest on ‘phase two’ Amendments to the RLLC Act

The statutory review of the Residential Land Lease Communities Act 2013 (RLLC Act) was tabled in parliament in November of 2021 and so far, only 21 out of the 48 recommendations from the review have passed parliament.

We know that some of the amendments retained for ‘phase two’ of the statutory review are of high importance, particularly for home owners whose circumstances will be directly improved by the next phase of amendments we’re waiting for.

The Tenants' Union has asked the Strata and Property Services Commissioner at NSW Fair Trading (who oversees policy and law reform for Land Lease Communities), to keep us updated about ‘phase two’ of the draft bill amending the RLLC Act.

Fair Trading NSW recently confirmed that the statutory review still has some complex items to work through, for example the recommendations around sale of homes. They intend to take a staged implementation approach to complete the statutory review.

In the next few months targeted consultations are expected to commence ahead of the formal consultation process, but further amendments to the RLLC Act are not likely to be introduced into Parliament this year.

‘Phase two’ will address the remaining 27 recommendations from the statutory review which include:

• Mandatory information to be provided about the sale of homes and entering into a site agreement.
• Assigning ongoing responsibility to operators for site maintenance and repair.
• Transfer of existing site fees to a new site agreement (except when substantially lower than comparable sites).
• New regulatory provisions for sustainability infrastructure (e.g solar installations) in line with the broader national context.
• Improving the way community rules are developed and dispute processes for amending or introducing new community rules.
• Establishing a penalty framework for breach of the ‘rules of conduct’ for operators and extending them to include relevant employees.
• Reviewing the existing penalty framework.

Stay tuned and we will share more news on the legislative changes with subscribers.