Pub­li­ca­tions

Jul 4, 2025

10 Tips For Stra­ta Reme­di­al Con­struc­tion Contracts

Are you won­der­ing why your stra­ta work to repair or main­tain your stra­ta build­ing is over bud­get, rid­dled with delays, plagued with costs over­runs and vari­a­tions at every turn?It is impor­tant to con­sid­er and fol­low these steps:Before ten­der­ing for the work to be done, have your build­ing con­tract, con­sul­tan­cy agree­ment and/​or sep­a­rate…

Jul 2, 2025

Impor­tant Stra­ta Law Changes — Effec­tive 1 July 2025

The Stra­ta Schemes Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment Act 2025 (Amend­ing Act) intro­duces fur­ther reform in Gov­ern­men­t’s ongo­ing review of the stra­ta legislation. On 1 July 2025, the sec­ond tranche of changes under the Amend­ing Act com­menced, which will impact or give effect to the following: enhanced pro­tec­tion of own­ers cor­po­ra­tions from stra­ta man­agers, build­ing man­agers and oth­ers…

Jun 26, 2025

Unfair con­tract terms in out­dat­ed stan­dard form con­tracts could cost you a fine of $50 mil­lion (Com­pa­nies) or $2.5 mil­lion (Indi­vid­u­als)

If you have not reviewed your stan­dard form con­struc­tion con­tracts since 9 Novem­ber 2023 (when the amend­ed Com­pe­ti­tion and Con­sumer Act 2010 (Cth) – Sched­ule 2 (ACL) became effec­tive), you could be at risk of any/​all unfair con­tract terms being declared void and hav­ing to pay a penalty. This means that:Any stan­dard form con­tract…

May 7, 2025

Which edi­tion of Build­ing Code of Aus­tralia applies to devel­op­ments in NSW?

The Build­ing Code of Aus­tralia (BCA) is part of the the Nation­al Con­struc­tion Code (NCC). The NCC is updat­ed every 3 years, based on required reg­u­la­to­ry prac­tices, indus­try research, pub­lic feed­back and pol­i­cy direc­tions from gov­ern­ments between pub­lish­ing cycles.Con­struc­tion projects often span 2 ver­sions of the BCA.There has his­tor­i­cal­ly been much debate in the New…

Apr 9, 2025

Res­i­den­tial Ten­an­cies Act 2010 (NSW) reforms and oblig­a­tions of land­lords — effec­tive from 19 May 2025

Intro­duc­tionThe Res­i­den­tial Ten­an­cies Act 2010 (NSW) (the Act) and the Res­i­den­tial Ten­an­cies Reg­u­la­tion 2019 (NSW) (the Reg­u­la­tions) have under­gone some sig­nif­i­cant changes fol­low­ing a pro­longed and exten­sive con­sul­ta­tion peri­od with prop­er­ty man­age­ment stake­hold­ers. These changes have gen­er­at­ed a lot of buzz as they seek to improve the rights of ten­ants in NSW and…

Sep 3, 2024

What are you actu­al­ly buy­ing into when you buy a Stra­ta Unit?

It is impor­tant to under­stand what you are respon­si­ble for and what you actu­al­ly own when look­ing at buy­ing into stra­ta. You might be surprised.Usu­al­ly, when pur­chas­ing an indi­vid­ual lot in a stra­ta scheme, you are only buy­ing the air­space of a lot, the inter­nal sur­faces of walls, floors, ceil­ings includ­ing inter­nal walls…

Jul 23, 2024

Statu­to­ry Duty of Care – Part 4 Design and Build­ing Prac­ti­tion­ers Act 2020 – ‘…the risk of harm was fore­see­able… not insignificant…not far-fetched or fanciful’

On 5 July 2024, His Hon­our Jus­tice Waugh hand­ed down his deci­sion in The Own­ers – Stra­ta Plan 80867 v Da Sil­va [2024] NSWDC 263.Swaab, instruct­ing William Mar­shall of 7 Went­worth Sel­borne Cham­bers, act­ed for the Plain­tiff Own­ers Cor­po­ra­tion in the pro­ceed­ings, which were brought against Mr Da Sil­va (the Builder). The Builder…

Jul 11, 2023

Alert | Con­struc­tion indus­try update: When is reme­di­al build­ing work exempt devel­op­ment? 11 July 2023

The Depart­ment of Plan­ning and Envi­ron­ment has pub­lished a ​‘Reme­di­al Build­ing Work – State Envi­ron­men­tal Plan­ning Pol­i­cy (Exempt and Com­ply­ing Devel­op­ment Codes) 2008’ Fact Sheet (Fact Sheet) to pro­vide guid­ance as to when reme­di­al build­ing work is con­sid­ered exempt devel­op­ment under the Exempt and Com­ply­ing Devel­op­ment (Codes SEPP): https://​www​.plan​ning​.nsw​.gov​.au/​s​i​t​e​s​/​d​e​f​a​u​l​t​/​f​i​l​e​s​/2023 –…

Mar 13, 2023

NSW Con­struc­tion Update

Roberts v Good­win Street Devel­op­ments Pty Ltd [2023] NSW­CA 5 In a recent deci­sion hand­ed down by the NSW Court of Appeal it has been con­firmed that the duty of care pro­vi­sions intro­duced under Part 4 of the Design and Build­ing Prac­ti­tion­ers Act 2020 (NSW) (DBP Act) on 10 June 2020, in par­tic­u­lar a claim…

Mar 1, 2023

Stra­ta Reme­di­al Update: Emer­gency Reme­di­al Build­ing Works

The NSW Depart­ment of Cus­tomer Ser­vice has released a Fact Sheet: Emer­gency Reme­di­al Build­ing Work: https://​www​.fair​trad​ing​.nsw​.gov​.au/​t​r​a​d​e​s​-​a​n​d​-​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​e​s​/​c​o​n​s​t​r​u​c​t​i​o​n​-​a​n​d​-​t​r​a​d​e​-​e​s​s​e​n​t​i​a​l​s​/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​o​n​-​c​l​a​s​s​-​2​-​b​u​i​l​d​i​n​g​s​/​b​u​i​l​d​i​n​g​-​p​r​a​c​t​i​t​i​o​n​e​r​-​o​b​l​i​g​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​e​m​e​r​g​e​n​c​y​-​r​e​m​e​d​i​a​l​-​b​u​i​l​d​i​n​g​-work This Fact Sheet has been pre­pared as a guide­line to assist own­ers cor­po­ra­tions, stra­ta man­agers and design and build­ing prac­ti­tion­ers in respect of reme­di­al emer­gency build­ing works in exist­ing class 2 buildings. The ongo­ing con­struc­tion reform in…