New Rules for Short Term Residential Accommodation

From 1 November 2021, there will be new rules in place for Short Term Residential Accommodation (STRA). This will affect all STRA properties in New South Wales with responsibilities on the guests as well as the hosts.

The types of properties included as STRA are as follows:

• a dwelling house (free-standing house), an attached dwelling, or a semidetached dwelling
• a dual occupancy
• multi-dwelling housing
• a residential flat (such as a unit in a block of flats)
• a secondary dwelling (such as a granny flat)
• housing above shops.

The accommodation can be either hosted (where the owner lives at the property, but not necessarily in the rented dwelling) or non-hosted (where the owner does not live at the premises).

The new rules state that property will need to be registered by the host on the NSW Government Planning Portal with the relevant registration fee to be paid. It will be mandatory to register your STRA property on 1 November 2021.

The Code of Conduct obligations on booking platforms, hosts, guests and letting agents and facilitators can be found on the NSW Department of Fair Trading website. Parties who do not comply with the Code of Conduct may be added to the Exclusion Register where they will not be able to be involved in this type of accommodation for a period of 5 years.

New Fire Safety requirements must also be satisfied for all STRA properties. The property must be compliant with the fire safety standards by 1 March 2022. The property must still be registered by 1 November 2021 so bookings can be taken.

There are also exemptions in place, which may be due to the location of the property or for non-hosted bookings of 21 or more consecutive days. You should contact the relevant department to see if the property falls under the exemption.