Strata fees?

[Paula and Jay]

Hi all, I'm having a bit of a panic attack - we are moving to Sydney 2 weeks on Friday and have budgeted $650 pw for an apartment. I know we have to pay rates and utilities on top of this but what are "strata" fees? Does everyone renting pay for these? I've only seen it on a few older properties?

Can someone please let me know what these are and how would I find out if a property were looking at has these fees?

Many Thanks

James

[surflen22]

As far as I'm aware, rates and strata fees should be paid for by the owner not the tenant. You should only be responsible for utilities.

[Paula and Jay]

Thanks for the quick reply. On some rentals adverts its saying the strata fees are x amount each quarter?

[surflen22]

I'd be looking for one where that isn't the case. Its an added cost you don't need! I think the fees can be quite high and in any strata building I've ever stayed in, these costs were covered by the landlord.

[Guest The Pom Queen]

I'm not sure who is responsible when renting, Petals may know, but Strata/Body Corp can be very expensive in some places.

I know when we had tenants we paid the body corp for them.

[MARYROSE02]

Tenants don't pay for strata fees or rates. The owner does and he or she can usually claim for them on their tax return as costs of managing their investment property.

[Paula and Jay]

Yeah we are going to get one where we don't have to pay it! It's seems so expensive as well! Thanks for the info

jay

[Petals]

As has been said tenants are not liable for strata fees or rates. However if each apartment/unit has a separate water meter then the tenant pays for water. If there is only one meter for the whole block landlord has to pay.

 

With commercial leases its different, the tenant pays all rates, insurance, strata, land tax etc.

[CXW]

Petals, that's correct for Victoria, but it may be different in NSW.

 

It might be worth contacting TenantsNSW: http://www.tenants.org.au

 

I've taken a quick look at their fact sheets and there's one about renting a strata property (http://www.tenants.org.au/publish/factsheet-13-strata-scheme-tenants/index.php), but there's nothing in it about who pays the fees.

[NickyNook]

I'm a landlord in NSW and I don't charge tenants strata fees, nor do I know of any landlord charging strata fees. In 30 years of reading real estate ads I've never, ever seen any ad for a rental that states strata fees are payable on top of the rent.

 

Is the OP sure she saw it on a rental ad? They're commonly included in for sale ads, of course - but I've never seen strata fees mentioned on a rental.

 

Can we have a link to where you've seen it?

[pwkl]

Currently renting apartment in a block in Sydney, strata fees and water rates are paid by the landlord. Would be very unusual if you had to pay strata when renting.

[Paula and Jay]

Hi Nickynook it didntnp specify that it had to be paid but on domain.com on the plans it quoted the strata prices that had to be paid, where I then started panicking! Thanks for the advice, much appreciated everyone :-)