It was with considerable pride that NSW Fair Trading announced the new strata laws that came into force at the beginning of last month. And to be fair, it was trumpeting an impressive menu of law changes.

For a start, strata law was brought under Australian consumer regulations for the first time and that had an immediate effect.

Strata living is becoming a reality for an increasing portion of Sydneysiders.Credit: Dean Sewell

Strata Community Association NSW – the state’s strata managers’ professional body – had already amended the terms of its standard contract to accommodate the new rules. This does, however, beg the question of what was wrong with the contracts before they were amended.

Embedded network contracts will be limited to three years. That should, in theory, put paid to the commonplace scam where a developer of a new building does a deal with a services provider or infrastructure installer to get a discount, provided they persuade off-the-plan buyers to pay the difference, often more, via grossly inflated service contracts. One that I encountered recently expected off-the-plan........

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