New community land laws now in force
The Community Land Development Act 2021 and Community Land Management Act 2021, together with their supporting regulations, commenced on 1 December 2021 following extensive consultation conducted by the Office of the Registrar General and NSW Fair Trading.
Community Land Development Act 2021 No 6 - NSW Legislation
Community Land Management Act 2021 No 7 - NSW Legislation
The new laws modernise and simplify the governance and management structure in community, precinct and neighbourhood schemes, simplify development processes, and give associations greater flexibility to deal with land.
The Acts repeal and replace the previous community land laws, aligning provisions with the major changes to strata laws introduced in 2015.
Key changes include:
- more flexibility for schemes to deal with association property and to add land to a scheme (including through a plan of subdivision)
- new process for development contracts, giving more flexibility to developers and transparency to purchasers:
- now includes warranted developments and authorised proposals, in line with strata provisions
- initial period restrictions apply unless the proposal is disclosed in development contract
- no longer mandatory for neighbourhood schemes (also optional for community and precinct schemes)
- a more effective trigger to end the initial period. For community or precinct schemes without a subsidiary scheme, this is linked to the issue of the occupation certificate that concludes the development, to prevent the initial period carrying on indefinitely
- simplified decision-making: some actions that previously required the unanimous resolution of the association now only require a special resolution
- an association can take the benefit of statutory easements
- tiered schemes can simplify their structure: neighbourhood and precinct schemes can amalgamate with the parent community scheme
- administrative terminations of community schemes can occur upon application to the Registrar General (NSW Land Registry Services, under delegation), without the need to go to court.
All legislation can be viewed on the NSW Legislation website. https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/
Please also see ‘Announcement – Community Land Laws’ published by NSW Land Registry Services for more information. https://www.nswlrs.com.au/About/About/Announcements/163