Strata laws affect more than one million people living and working in strata schemes across NSW, which will increase as our population grows.

Strata living can provide a friendly community-style environment and as strata living continues to change, we want to understand your experience.

We are reviewing the laws under the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 and Strata Schemes Development Act 2015.

Our wide-ranging review covers diverse areas of interest – including managing common property, resolving disputes, by-laws including animals, committee and owners corporation meetings, mixed-use schemes, strata renewal and much more.

For more information on the review, please read the discussion paper.

New laws for pets in strata

Since new laws started on 25 August 2021, owners corporations can't refuse the keeping of an animal in a strata scheme unless the animal unreasonably interferes with another resident's use and enjoyment of their lot or the common property.

Your feedback on the review of these laws has helped the NSW Government develop the Strata Schemes Management Amendment (Pets) Regulation 2021, which sets out the circumstances in which an animal causes an unreasonable interference.

The Government also tabled a report on the review of the Strata Schemes Management Act, as it relates to the keeping of animals, in NSW Parliament on 20 August 2021. The report sets out the public feedback we received as part of the pets in strata survey and how the circumstances prescribed in the new pets regulations were developed.

Next steps

This engagement closed on 7 April 2021. Thank you to all participants for providing input.

The NSW Government:

  • tabled a report on the findings of the review in NSW Parliament on 29 November 2021. Legislation to implement the recommendations of the review is being prepared in 2022/23
  • advanced the first phase of reforms with new laws that started 11 December 2023 that deliver immediate benefits for residents and owners in strata and community land schemes. Further reforms will be progressed in 2024.


News feed

NSW strata reforms

The NSW Government has advanced the first phase of reforms with new laws that started on 11 December 2023 that deliver immediate benefits for residents and owners in strata and community land schemes.

The changes implement 31 of the recommendations from the 2021 Report on the Statutory Review of the Strata Schemes Development Act 2015 and Strata Schemes Management Act 2015. The report was informed by those of you that provided feedback as part of this public consultation.

With the rapid emergence and increasing complexity of strata, it is important that people are aware of the changes.

The reforms include changes that:

  • make it easier and fairer for residents to keep pets by banning fees, bonds or insurance as a condition of having a pet
  • make the strata renewal process more transparent by:
  • ensuring owners must disclose conflicts of interest at key decision points
  • enabling courts to award costs against dissenting owners acting unreasonably
  • require managing agents to provide notice three to six months ahead of their contract expiry date to the owners corporation or association.

For more information about these changes and other reforms, access the:

Further reforms to the strata and community lands laws will be progressed in 2024. To learn about further opportunities to have your say on any proposed new laws, subscribe to NSW Fair Trading’s newsletter for strata and community scheme updates.

Quick poll

Quick Poll

Should strata schemes be allowed to ban pets?

This poll has concluded.

Total Votes: 21314

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Pets in strata survey

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Strata Management Act survey

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Strata Development Act survey

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Submissions may be made publicly available. If you do not want your personal details or any part of your submission published, please indicate this clearly. Automatically generated confidentiality statements in emails are not sufficient. Submissions may be referred to in a report on the outcome of the consultation, however any anonymous submissions will be referred to as such.

Please note, there may be circumstances where the Government is required by law to release the information in your submission. For example, in accordance with the requirements of the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009. It is also a statutory requirement that all submissions are provided to the Legislation Review Committee of Parliament.


Your privacy

This consultation is for NSW Fair Trading, Department of Customer Service. Have your say consultations are run by the NSW Department of Customer Service (McKell Building, 2-4 Rawson Place, Haymarket NSW 2000).

We are interested in hearing from the community and will use the information we collect from you to help develop the programs and services that NSW Government provides.

We are collecting only minimal personal information from you. We may collect basic information like your name and contact details, if you choose to provide them. You may provide some personal information in response to questions that we ask you. For example, we may ask you about your experiences or opinions about a particular topic.

Having your say is voluntary and you are not legally required to provide any personal information to us. For some consultations, though, you will not be able to have your say unless you agree to include your personal information.

If you do provide personal information to us, you have a right to access it, and can ask us to correct it if it is wrong.

We may share personal information you provide with other parts of the Department of Customer Service (for example, with our Data Analytics Centre) so that we can conduct analysis across all consultations and refine our engagement methodology.

Where we conduct a consultation on behalf of a partner agency, we would usually share the information that we collect with that agency. Partner agencies for each consultation are listed on the webpage for that consultation.

For privacy information about your use of the NSW Government website generally, please see the NSW Government’s website privacy statement.

You can contact our Privacy Coordinator by calling 13 77 88 or by emailing Privacy@customerservice.nsw.gov.au.