Short answer
NSW Fair Trading is the government body that oversees strata in NSW. For disputes, it provides plain-English information about your rights and a free mediation service, and it’s a common first port of call before NCAT. It does not make binding orders — that’s NCAT’s role.
What Fair Trading does
Fair Trading’s job in a dispute is guidance and mediation, not judgment:
- Information. It explains how the rules work — by-laws, levies, meetings, repairs — so you understand your position before acting.
- Mediation. It offers a free, voluntary service where a neutral mediator helps the parties reach their own agreement (see how strata mediation works).
- Oversight. It administers strata law in NSW and licenses strata managing agents, but it doesn’t run individual schemes or overrule committee decisions.
Where Fair Trading stops and NCAT begins
Fair Trading can help parties agree, but it can’t force an outcome. If mediation fails or a binding decision is needed, the matter goes to NCAT, which can make orders the parties must follow. In practice the two work in sequence — Fair Trading mediation first, the Tribunal if that doesn’t resolve it — and for many disputes attempting mediation is expected before you apply to NCAT.
Getting the most out of it
Fair Trading and mediation both work better when you arrive with the facts in order — dates, correspondence, minutes, and a clear statement of what you’re asking for. A self-managed scheme that runs on Straita keeps that record as a matter of course, so if a dispute reaches Fair Trading there’s already a dated, orderly trail to point to rather than a scramble to reconstruct what happened.
Primary sources
- NSW Government — Strata schemes (Fair Trading) — information, complaints and mediation.
- Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW) — Fair Trading’s functions and dispute resolution.
- NCAT — NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal — where disputes go for binding orders.