Question: The shop within the scheme holds lock boxes on behalf of lot owners to hand out to short-term guests. Our caretaker has a short-term letting license in our building. Is the shop a competitor? Can there be more than one letting agent?
I am the chairperson of a strata titled building in Qld. The building includes a shop within the strata boundary. I recently went into the shop and saw some key lock boxes on a shelf. A customer asked the shop attendant for a room key, and the attendant passed over a key.
I asked the attendant why they held so many key lock boxes. Owners who rent out their lots on Airbnb have arranged with the shop to serve as the designated location for their guests to pick up the keys.
Our caretaker has been granted a short-term letting licence. Would the shop handing out room keys be considered a form of letting? Can there be more than one letting agent? Can you run a business within a business?
Answer: Depending on what the by-laws provide for, the shop may have an issue competing with the caretaker as part of a letting operation from within scheme land.
Depending on what the by-laws provide for, the shop may have an issue in competing with the caretaker as part of a letting operation from within scheme land.
Owners are free to engage any person to act on their behalf as an agent (or assist them in providing services); however, it is the body corporate who is usually restricted from endorsing more than one letting agent. There may be an obligation here (depending on the by-laws) to seek to stop the competing letting from taking place from within the lot.
This post appears in Strata News #655.
Todd Garsden Mahoneys E: tgarsden@mahoneys.com.au P: 07 3007 3753