Calculation of service by post

  • July 21, 2025
  • by Liam Kerr

Blog Originally Posted December 2018

 

Schedule 1.18 of the Justice Legislation Amendment Bill (No 3) 2018 (NSW) amends section 76 (1) (b) of the Interpretation Act 1987 (NSW). The changes extend the time it takes to effect service by post for notices and documents from four to seven working days after the day of postage.

This legislative change was assented to on 28 November and has immediate impacts on the time required to serve notices and documents under strata and community title legislation, such as Notices of Meetings and Notices of Action as to proposed levy recovery proceedings.

The change will add significantly to the lead time for the calling of all meetings given that the extended period of seven days both necessitates that some weekend days will be caught, as well as increasing the occurrences of one or more public holidays falling within the service by post period.

It’s also important to remember that the day of the meeting must be excluded from the calculation of service by post under section 36 of the Interpretation Act 1987 (NSW).

Our friends at Chambers Russell Lawyers demonstrate the significant impact of the change in the below example which shows that if a notice of a general meeting (apart from a First Annual General Meeting) of an owners corporation under the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 was posted on Monday 24 December 2018, the earliest that the meeting could be held would be Tuesday 15 January 2019 – 23 days:

Day Date Weekday Service calculation Event
1 24/12/2018 Monday Postage date not included Notice posted
2 25/12/2018 Tuesday (Public holiday)
3 26/12/2018 Wednesday (Public holiday)
4 27/12/2018 Thursday First working day
5 28/12/2018 Friday Second working day
6 29/12/2018 Saturday (Weekend)
7 30/12/2018 Sunday (Weekend)
8 31/12/2018 Monday Third working day
9 1/01/2019 Tuesday (Public holiday)
10 2/01/2019 Wednesday Fourth working day
11 3/01/2019 Thursday Fifth working day
12 4/01/2019 Friday Sixth working day
13 5/01/2019 Saturday (Weekend)
14 6/01/2019 Sunday (Weekend)
15 7/01/2019 Monday Seventh working day Notice effective
16 8/01/2019 Tuesday First notice day
17 9/01/2019 Wednesday Second notice day
18 10/01/2019 Thursday Third notice day
19 11/01/2019 Friday Fourth notice day
20 12/01/2019 Saturday Fifth notice day
21 13/01/2019 Sunday Sixth notice day
22 14/01/2019 Monday Seventh notice day
23 15/01/2019 Tuesday Date of meeting

 

This change to the calculation of service by post will also impact on the service of documents such as payment schedules or payment claims under the Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payment) Act 1999, as well as other NSW laws that may impact your clients.