 Thank you for watching today's webinar recording. My name is Lynne Smith from the Residential Tenancies Authority. Today's information is collaboration between the RTA and the Body Corporate Commissioner's Office and the focus is on the upcoming tenancy law changes regarding the framework for negotiating renting with a pet and more so how this applies to the community title schemes in Queensland, so your apartments, units and townhouses. Before we start I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners on the land on which we are recording today and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. Today the focus is on the framework for negotiating renting with a pet and the new tenancy laws commencing on 1 October 2022. I'd like to introduce our guest speaker Sharon from the Commissioner's Office of the Body Corporate and Community Management and Sharon will be taking you through today about the role of their office, Body Corporate bylaws and the approval process from the Body Corporate or their committee and their dispute resolution process. Thank you for joining today Sharon. Thanks Lynne, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here today. Just a reminder before I go into the new pet laws, owners or managers of units, apartments and townhouses where there is a Body Corporate and bylaws must give a copy of the relevant bylaws to the tenant that relate to their complex. The bylaws form part of the tenancy agreement and therefore a breach of the bylaw is a breach of the tenancy agreement. Owners and managers are encouraged to ensure the right bylaws are provided to tenants at the start of the tenancy. So let's start with the tenancy law changes in relation to the negotiation with renting with a pet. The RTA does not regulate the laws for the prospective tenant application or the selection process. We do regulate the law for the start during an ending of a tenancy. The new laws about pets are for existing tenancies and will commence on 1 October 2022. This new framework provides guidance and structure around conversations and negotiations associated with requests to have a pet in a rental property. The owner still does need to give permission and likewise for apartments and units under Body Corporate bylaws so does the Body Corporate Committee and we have Sharon to talk with you more today about that. Tents will also need to ensure that they do comply with any local council laws regarding the pets and any damage caused by the pet is not considered fair wear and tear. It will be up to tenants to pay for any costs to rectify the damage. It's two steps involved. Firstly the tenant will need to seek permission and then the owner or the manager will need to respond with approval or refusal in writing. For tenants you'll need to be able to provide information about the pet including the size, type, weight, colour and they may also consider including a photo or other information so that the owner or the agent can make an informed decision. The RTA will provide a new form. It will be a request to keep a pet form and also a template for owners to respond. These will be released on 1 October 2022 and available on the RTA's website to download. The owner or the manager can only refuse the request sorry for identified reasonable grounds and will need to do so within 14 days. If there's no response from the owner within 14 days it is then deemed that the pet is approved. So the legislation outlines what are reasonable grounds to refuse a pet under the new laws. It's what you see on your screen there and it includes exceeding a reasonable number of animals to be kept but the property is not suitable or that the pet is likely to cause damage that could not be repaired for the cost of the rental bond amount. It could also contraven a bylaw or another law. It could also be that there's a risk to health and safety of another person or if the tenant does not agree to reasonable conditions that have been proposed by the owner as part of the conditions of having a pet. The RTA recommends self-resolution in the first instance for any tenancy disputes. We encourage property managers and owners and tenants to respectfully speak to each other communicate is the communication is the key to resolving most disputes. If you're unable to resolve a dispute and also if a tenant believes the owner's grounds for refusing a pet is not reasonable or valid the tenant can apply to the tribunal but first must go through the RTA's free dispute resolution service before applying to the tribunal. The role of the conciliator is impartial they're not there to take sides nor are they there to make decisions the parties to the dispute own the dispute and the outcome. The RTA resolves over 70% of disputes where parties will participate in the conciliation process. If it's not resolved a notice of unresolved dispute is issued then the next step is QCAT the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal where an adjudicator will make a decision. Going to QCAT is self-representation and you will need to ensure that you have all your paperwork organised and any evidence. Information on the application and fees can be found on the QCAT's website which is qcat.qld.gov.au. The RTA also has other resources available on our website regarding the new tenancy law changes and that includes the framework for negotiating renting with a pet. So I'm going to welcome Sharon back to talk to you now about the role of the commissioner's office and who's who in the complex when it comes to the body corporate and also body corporate bylaws. So over to you Sharon. Thanks Lynn. The commissioner's office is established under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act and we provide an information and community education service as also a dispute resolution service. The information and community education service provides a callback service and also responds to written inquiries. The dispute resolution service consists of two stage process, conciliation and adjudication. We're not a complaints body, an advocacy service or an investigation agency. Who's who? When you rent or own in a body corporate there's a few titles that get thrown around and it can sometimes get a bit confusing about who is who and what they actually do. So I'll just briefly explain about the roles of the onsite manager, the letting agent and the body corporate manager. The onsite manager is engaged by the body corporate manager to perform maintenance duties for the body corporate such as your gardening and your cleaning. They also have letting rights for the scheme, not always but sometimes. Owners aren't obliged to use the onsite manager to let their lots, they can use external agents. The body corporate managers also engage by the body corporate but their jobs to perform more administrative functions on behalf of the body corporate. This includes things like organizing meetings, keeping the body corporate records. Sometimes body corporate managers will only deal with tenants through their letting agent but there's nothing stopping a tenant dealing directly with the body corporate. If you want to ask permission for a pet you can write directly to your body corporate manager and their role is to pass your request on to the committee to make a decision. It's important to understand that neither the onsite manager or the body corporate manager have any capacity to make a decision on behalf of the body corporate. The committee is made up of owners or their representatives of the body corporate and they make decisions on the day-to-day running of the body corporate. So if you're seeking approval for a pet it's going to be the committee that makes the decision. So what are bylaws? So today we're here to discuss bylaws or pets in tenancies within a community title scheme. The ability to bring a pet onto common property or into a unit is usually governed by body corporate bylaws. So what are they? Bylaws are additional rules made by the body corporate to manage behavior on the common property or within lots in a community title scheme. Everybody corporate has a different set of bylaws so it's really important that you check. If a bylaw is not registered on the community management statement it's not enforceable. Tenants are required to comply with the bylaws of the body corporate and if they don't they may be issued with a contravention notice. Contravention notice is like a breach notice and it might ask them to stop a particular behavior within a given timeframe. So for example remove your pet within seven days or the contravention notice may say that a particular behavior can't be repeated within a three month timeframe. So for example remove something from the common property. If a tenant doesn't comply with the notice the body corporate has two choices. They can go to the magistrates court for a penalty of up to two and a half thousand dollars or can lodge a conciliation application with the BCCM office. It's important to remember that a body corporate cannot evict a tenant for not complying with the bylaws but they can ask you to remove your pet if it's causing a nuisance. So pet bylaws specifically as I said earlier most schemes have a bylaw that relates to the keeping of pets. Regardless of what your landlord says about whether or not you can have your pet you also need to check the bylaws of your body corporate and most likely we also need to have permission from your body corporate. There's many different types of pet bylaws. The most common type is permissive and basically that means that you can have an animal provided you ask the body corporate for approval. Bylaws with conditions are also popular and usually means you'll still need to seek permission but there are conditions that are attached to that approval. The types of conditions that are common include keeping the pet restrained on common property or picking up and disposing of its mess or not allowing the doctor cause a nuisance. Whilst they're becoming less and less some bodies corporate do have blanket bans on pets and it's important to make sure that the body corporate where you're renting doesn't have this type of bylaw as it will make it much more difficult to get approval and therefore take much longer as the bylaw actually needs to be changed so that the body corporate committee can approve your pet. So how do you go about getting approval for your pet? In a body corporate situation a tenant can seek approval for their pet directly from the body corporate. So this might be through the body corporate manager or going straight to your committee. Sometimes it's difficult when you're a tenant to know how to contact or who to contact the appropriate people. If you don't know who your committee is or who the body corporate manager is you can ask your landlord or perhaps another owner within the complex. Most of the time the decision about your pet will be made by the committee. They can either do this by voting outside a committee meeting which is usually a much quicker way to make a decision or the committee meeting and that takes at least seven days to call. If the committee write backs you and tells you yes you can have your pet then you can bring your pet onto the complex provided your landlord also agrees. If the committee write back to you until you know or they don't respond to your pet request then you may wish to consider lodging a conciliation application with the BCCM office. I guess it's important to remember that whilst the landlord has 14 days to respond to your request for a pet under the tenancy laws a body corporate's not bound by that same law and just because the landlord says yes to your pet doesn't mean that you still don't have to ask for permission from the body corporate. When you bring your animal onto the scheme you have to comply with any conditions imposed by the body corporate. If your pet causes a nuisance and you're not a responsible pet owner the body corporate may ask you to remove the pet. Sashan what would be a reasonable time frame for a committee to respond based on your experience? We'd like to think that they'd respond in at least a few weeks. If you don't hear anything back after a few weeks it's probably a good idea to follow them up in writing again. If you still don't get a response after two attempts at trying to resolve it then by all means lodge a conciliation application with our office. And also too are you seeing any trends at present regarding the approval process like something that's a little bit different than the norm that you currently would see? Yeah in somebody's corporate what's happening is they're making decisions to make it decisions about pets a restricted issue for the committee and basically what this means is that the committee is not able to make a decision in relation to pets. As a consequence it needs to go to a general meeting of the body corporate. Bodies corporate are compelled to have at least one annual general meeting a year so it can make it a much longer process to get your pet approved. Because tenants can't lodge or submit motions for the general meeting they're going to have to ask an owner either their owner or another owner in the scheme to propose a motion or they can write to the committee requesting the committee to propose a motion on their behalf. Disputing the decision so if the decision of the body corporate you believe is unreasonable we have three stages in our dispute process similar to the RTA. The first step is the self-resolution process. Because tenants can't propose motions like I just explained self-resolution may include simply writing to the body corporate making a request for their animal. They need to consider that most body corporate will take time to make a decision. If you haven't heard anything for a few weeks as explained before you might want to follow them up you'll need to provide evidence of your attempts of self-resolution when you lodge a conciliation application so it's really important that you make those requests in writing. The next step with our process and which is the formal step is lodging a conciliation application. Conciliation for us is a three-hour meeting where parties come together to make a good will agreement. If that agreement isn't complied with or you don't reach an agreement in that process the third stage of our process is adjudication. Adjudication is where you need to submit all of your evidence again because the conciliation isn't taken into consideration. Both parties get to put side their point of view and an adjudicator will make a binding order based on the evidence in front of them. Just on that Sharon with applying for the conciliation and adjudication is there a fee that people would have to pay to go through your office? There is a fee at the time of this recording the cost of the conciliation and an adjudication application is $88.90. More information about our fees and services can be found on our website but just bearing in mind that if your conciliation fails it's an additional application for adjudication plus an additional fee so you may be up to two lots of $88.90. If you're unsure of what your rights and responsibilities are in a community title scheme whether you're an owner or whether you're a tenant you may wish to contact our information and community education unit on the details provided on the screen. Okay thanks Sharon can I just clarify some of the more commonly asked questions that we are also hearing so just some clarification like who makes contact with the Body Corporate Committee is it the owner or the managing agent or the tenant or either one can come to the Body Corporate? It can be either party bearing in mind that it needs to be the tenant that lodges the conciliation application the self-resolution needs to come from the tenant now that may be the tenant responding or directly writing to the Body Corporate or it may be that their written request is passed on by their property agent if the Body Corporate won't deal directly with the tenant. Right now we know that under tenancy laws you can't ask for a fee outside of what the legislation says, nor can for pets can you ask for a pet bond but does a tenant have to pay a fee to a Body Corporate Committee to get an answer on their pet application? There's no legislative basis for a tenant to have to pay for body corporates to make decisions that being said as body corporates are only compelled to have one annual general meeting a year and don't have a strict time frame in which they need to respond it's purely up to the tenant whether or not they choose to pay for that cost of that decision to be made bearing in mind paying for it doesn't necessarily mean you get a positive response. And just clarifying it is the owner and the Body Corporate so both do actually have to approve a pet before they can reside in the complex or the apartment. That's right. And what happens if the pet is all approved and there's a complaint made to the Body Corporate about say like the dog's barking in the apartment or dare we say using the common area for the wrong reason um now you mentioned before about nuisance can a resident or a tenant be asked to have the pet removed if it is causing a nuisance? Absolutely so if another lot is affected negatively by a pet's behavior um and the pet owner is not a responsible pet owner the Body Corporate can ask for the pet to be removed. Great so we just want to go through a couple scenarios here so a tenant Greg is renting an apartment and completes a pet request form and applies to the property manager Sally to have a small dog during the term of his tenancy. Sally then forwards the request to Bill the owner. Now Sally and Bill are aware they need to respond to Greg's request within the 14 days as outlined under the tenancy laws and have also advised Greg that the Body Corporate will also need to provide approval for the pet. So let's just have a look at what happens if Bill says he has no problem with the pet however the Body Corporate needs to give permission first so Greg applies to the Body Corporate and does not get a response within that 14 days. Bill has the option then to refuse the pet application due to Greg not having the Body Corporate approval within that 14 day timeframe. Now the tenant Greg finally gets approval four weeks later from the Body Corporate so Greg reapplies to Bill by Sally for the um the agent for approval and shows that he now has Body Corporate approval so then yes pet's approved Body Corporate's approved owner's approved so same situation but if this was the case where the Body Corporate Committee has approved within the 14 days again Body Corporate's approved owner's approved pet's approved. So first what we want to have a look at too is some situations where if there is an issue which side to go whether it's a Body Corporate or an RTA disputes so the tenant applies owner says no but tenant knows that there are other approved pets in the building. Tenant applies to the Body Corporate for approval and complies with the bylaws and is approved three weeks later. Tenant advises the owner he has been he has approval from the Body Corporate however the owner still says no. Tenant can apply to the RTA's free dispute resolution service if it's not then resolved they then can apply to the tribunal which is QCAT. So tenant applies the owner says yes but the Body Corporate says no so Sharon this is where it would come to your office for dispute resolution. That's right the dispute then lies with the Body Corporate. And last too the tenant applies to the Body Corporate Committee and no response within two weeks. Tenant makes a follow-up request with the Body Corporate Manager still no response. Tenant's quite concerned at this stage it's been over a month and still no reply. What do they do? What's their next step Sharon? If they've got written evidence that they've made a couple of attempts to contact the committee with their request and they haven't received a response after a few weeks then the next step would be to provide that evidence and logic insulation application with our office. So there will be a lot of information to come out over the coming weeks relating to the new laws. The RTA produces a range of educational resources including webinars on Tenant's legislation and key topics as well as our Talk Intenses podcast series. You can access these through the RTA's website and the links around will screen. If you are into social media you can also follow us on the LinkedIn. So our RTA website has a lot of information and resources available to help you regarding tenancy laws and processes. Our contact sentence available Monday to Friday 8 30 a.m to 5 p.m excluding public holidays on 1300 3 6 3 1. Thank you Sharon for your time today in stepping us through the world of Body Corporate bylaws and pet approvals and who's who in the complex really do appreciate your time in sharing your knowledge and also information for the rental community. So for tenants and owners and managers where to get more information from your office. Thanks Len for having me. If anybody has any Body Corporate questions please please feel free to reach out to the Body Corporate Commissioners Office. Our phone number is 1800 060 119. Leave a message for a call back and we'll get back to you within 24 hours. Great thank you.