Assistance Animals

Where are you? In the ACT, a resident must apply to keep an animal but the owners corporation cannot unreasonably withhold permission. Any rule (aka bylaw or article) must be consistent with that provision of the Act. 

Sorry to tell you this but your No Pets bylaw may not stand up if tested. 

Per Cathy Sherry’s recent article: https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/even-goldfish-could-be-banned-until-now-20180904-p501oa.html NCAT last week published a decision that a blanket ban on pets was invalid as it breached the new prohibition on bylaws that are harsh, unconscionable or oppressive. 

A complex I am involved in currently has a No Pets bylaw in place, which numerous residents ignore, and at the next AGM we intend to put in a well structured but fair bylaw requiring an independent assessment by a vet of the suitability of the breed of cat/dog etc to the unit. This has been based upon other excellent posts on this forum. 

Re your specific question about assistance animals. If they have their animal trained and a permit obtained, and an appropriate medical professional signs off on the residents “condition” being aided by the assistance animal, you would be very hard pressed to get the animal removed, regardless of it your No Pets bylaw is valid or not. 

Per https://www.olg.nsw.gov.au/public/dogs-and-cats/information-for-the-community/assistance-animals it is not hard to find a disability that a person could claim that would be very hard to disprove. 

Recently our strata building had a (false) fire alarm at 5am.

We all piled out onto the street in our pyjamas clutching our nearest and dearest. I never knew so many of my neighbours had pets!

The building (in VIC) doesn’t allow pets unless there’s a medical requirement.

Some of us were chatting and several holding dogs swapped tips about pretending medical conditions to GPs that warrant a pet. Personally I support people having well-cared-for pets that cause no problems but it did make me cynical about the assessment of medical requirements.

In the case of a pet owner’s neighbour being allergic to pets or debilitated by fear of them, it seems unfair that those difficulties can be trumped by a faked medical condition. Pet ownership and its impact on others needs to be taken more seriously.

Thanks for your thoughts JimmyT. Absolutely, there’s a culture of contempt for by-laws. I question whether by-laws restricting pets are always harsh. However we live, want doesn’t equal need or right.

In the case of my building, what’s harsh is someone with a real medical condition having to get rid of a neighbour’s pet. Even harsher is the fate of the pet, which may end up in a shelter or worse. All because it’s easy to cheat the assessment process. As some people in my building were openly owning up to doing.

Rather than ejecting pets after they’re proven to be a nuisance or a medical problem for a neighbour, it would be kinder to people and animals to have an effective assessment process up front. One that recognises how community-minded strata pet owners need to be.

rickjo wrote:

By laws mean nothing compared to the DDA 1992.. Question: How do you know they are not disabled?

We can stop this whole discussion now.  The NSW Court of Appeals has ruled that blanket “no-pets” by-laws are invalid and have no effect.  Debates over who’s disabled and who isn’t are irrelevant. Pets can no longer be banned in NSW.