Under the Housing Act 2001 (NSW) a community housing provider must be registered to receive assistance from Housing NSW.
To achieve registration a provider must satisfy the Registrar that they have complied with the requirements of the Regulatory Code for community housing providers.
The Regulatory Code has eight performance areas and community housing providers must meet requirements for each performance area.
The level of requirements is proportionate to the risk associated with the registration class of a provider.
Importantly, not all classes of provider are required to meet every requirement.
The Regulatory Code is available on the Legislation page of the Registrar's website.
Assessment
Assessment of a provider’s compliance with the requirements is achieved by self assessment and validation through the provision of information or evidence.
An on-site inspection may also be necessary in order to gather more information for the assessment process.
The information or evidence needed from community housing providers for registration is set out in the Registrar’s Evidence Guidelines. The Evidence Guidelines are directly aligned with the requirements set out in the Regulatory Code.
The Evidence Guidelines detail the range of evidence sources that must be supplied to demonstrate compliance with the requirements.
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Application form
Organisations applying for registration as a community housing provider complete the registration process online.
Organisations will receive a user name and password which provides access to the Request to Register form. After completing this form the Registrar confirms whether the organisation is eligible to apply for registration and which class they can apply to be registered under.
If the organisation is eligible to apply, the Registrar will provide a unique user ID and password which enables access to the Regulation Management System (RMS). Once logged-in to RMS the organisation can access the Application Form and Financial Perfomance Report for that class of provider.
Registration resources
The application form is supported by registration resources which organisations can download from the Registrar's website.
Registration resources available for download include:
Community housing providers will be sent the registration resources prior to their scheduled registration.
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Registration classes
Four registration classes have been established to reflect the scale and type of activities that community housing providers are engaged in.
This distinction is required because where a provider has a large housing portfolio, delivers a number of different housing services with complex financial arrangements and is undertaking development, assessments for registration need to be more comprehensive and intensive to reflect the higher level of risk to stakeholders from poor performance.
For provider’s that deliver a single housing service, for example, assessments are more straightforward.
The classes of registration are as follows:
- Growth provider: typically organisations managing a large portfolio of properties (400 or more) and undertaking community housing development projects utilising private sector funds and investment. Organisations registered in this class are subject to the highest level of regulatory requirements which reflects the greater level of resources committed by government to these providers and the increased level of risk involved in borrowing and community housing development projects.
- Housing provider: typically, organisations managing a large portfolio of properties (200 or more) and undertaking small scale projects to develop community housing. Organisations registered in this class are subject to medium to high levels of regulatory requirements dependant on the scale of their community housing operations and their level of involvement, if any, in commuity housing development projects.
- Housing manager: typically, organisations managing a small to medium sized portfolio of properties (30 or more) focused on tenancy management. Organisations registered in this class are subject to regulatory requirements that are proportionate to the scale of their community housing operations.
- Small housing manager: typically, organisations managing a small portfolio of properties (on or more) focused on tenancy management. Organisations registered in this class are regulatory requirements that are proportionate to small scale community housing operations.
The criteria for decisions about a provider's registration class is indicative and in some cases may need to be negotiated with the Registrar to ensure the class best reflects the provider’s current housing portfolio and business structure.
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