New Code of Conduct for Short Term Rental Accommodation

The following has been reproduced courtesy of Rosy Sullivan, Director, Australian College of Professionals.

If you have an investment property and lease it out for short-term rentals, this is particularly relevant for you. 

It is also noteworthy for all of us who use short-term rental accommodation for holidays or live in an apartment where there is short-term rental demand.

It has been two years of waiting for strata owners to see what will happen with the short-term holiday letting code of conduct and now they have an answer.

In June 2018, the NSW Government announced that there would be a new regulatory framework to manage short-term rental accommodation.  The key elements of the framework are:

• A state-wide planning framework to achieve consistency and certainty across local planning controls
• A Code of Conduct to apply to online accommodation platforms, letting agents, facilitators, hosts & guests
• Changes to strata laws to allow owners corporations to adopt by-laws that prohibit non-resident lot owners from offering short-term rentals
• A mandatory short-term rental accommodation premises register

As at 18 December 2020 the Code of Conduct will be in place to better manage and address anti-social behaviour, amenity impacts (including in shared facilities such as pools and gyms) and other issues experiences by neighbours and communities.  The new Code has been published on the NSW Fair Trading website and this Code of Conduct is mandatory and applies to all short-term rental accommodation industry participants.

The Code of Conduct is split between hosts, letting agents, booking platforms and those participants who use short-term letting as guests.  This provides a framework for how each of the participants are expected to conduct themselves as well as allowing disciplinary action against participants who breach the Code, including listing people who commit serious breaches on an exclusion register.  People listed on the exclusion register will be banned from participating in the short-term rental accommodation industry for five years.

NSW Fair Trading have also noted the following:

“Since 10 April 2020, owners corporations can adopt laws that limit short-term rental accommodation in the strata scheme, by banning it in lots that are not the host’s principal place of residence.  This means that if someone lives in a strata property as their principal place of residence, they can rent out their home or rooms while they live there, or temporarily go on holidays.”

One of the rules within the Code of Conduct that should be noted, is in reference to a premises register that short-term letting premises will now need to implement.

From 1 June 2021 onwards, a letting agent must only advertise or offer premises or otherwise facilitate the host of the premises entering into a short-term rental accommodation arrangement for the promises if:

1. The host and premises are registered on the premises register, and
2. The premise’s registration number is displayed alongside the premises details wherever those details are displayed by the letting agent.  This section is an offence provision under Section 54C of the Act and a civil penalty provision under Section 54C of the Act.

There appears to be a six month transition into the Code and penalties for non-compliance in many cases will not be applied until June 2021.

If you would like to get some advice on purchasing an investment property, please feel free to call us on 8004 2222 or book in a time to chat with George.

PS  This article is prepared based on general information. It does not take into account individual financial or property objectives or needs and is not financial product or investment advice.