NSW Consolidation of By-Laws

NSW: Consolidating your Strata By Laws is still worth doing properly

Under the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW), the secretary of an owners corporation must keep a consolidated, up to date copy of the scheme’s strata by laws.

An owners corporation can change its by laws by special resolution, but the change has no effect until it’s registered with NSW Land Registry Services (NSW LRS) by lodging the appropriate documents against the certificate of title for the common property. Registration must happen within six months of the resolution being passed. If that window is missed, the by law can’t be registered and the owners corporation will need to pass the resolution again at a future meeting.

Since the 2015 reforms, NSW LRS has required a consolidated list of all the by laws currently in force, including the new change, to be lodged as part of the registration. In practice, this means the owners corporation needs a proper consolidation done before it can register any further changes.

Once a consolidated version is registered, all the earlier change of by laws notations on the title are removed and the folio simply refers to the new consolidated version. Because of this, it’s important the consolidated list is complete and accurate before it’s lodged. Owners corporations should also keep in mind that strata by laws in force for a NSW scheme can depend on the date the strata plan was originally registered, so older schemes are worth checking carefully.

There’s a limited exemption to having to lodge a full consolidation every time. NSW LRS may waive that requirement where there are no more than five separate change of by law dealings already recorded on the folio, though a letter explaining the circumstances needs to accompany the lodgement.

One point worth flagging for anyone managing a scheme’s paperwork: the form must be lodged electronically, which means it needs to go through someone registered with an Electronic Lodgement Network Operator, usually a solicitor or conveyancer, even though the strata manager or secretary typically prepares it.

We’d recommend any scheme that hasn’t reviewed its by laws in a while do so now, both to confirm they’re still fit for purpose and to check the current register matches what’s actually in force.