Rainey Collins Lawyers

Proposed Changes to the Unit Titles Act … What You Need to Know

By Claire Coe, Thursday, 26 November, 2009, Property

Unit Titled properties include most apartments and some freestanding houses which include multiple units.  Particular owners own their own their specific units and a share in the common property and a Body Corporate manages the common property and has other legal obligations.

The Unit Titles Act 1972 has governed these types of developments for decades and now Parliament is seeking to amend the law to make setting up these developments easier and more flexible and simplifying the way Bodies Corporate are run.

The key proposed changes are: 

• The Body Corporate itself will own all the common property.  Currently the owners all own the common property jointly.  This means the Body Corporate will be able to act on behalf of all the unit owners for the good of the development as a whole in order to get common property repaired, which will be a much more simple process.
• The Body Corporate will be responsible for repairing and maintaining building elements that affects more than one unit, i.e. if there is a leak from a top floor apartment to another, the Body Corporate will be responsible for fixing it, rather than the owner of the top floor apartment as would currently happen.
• Separate Bodies Corporate within one development will be able to be set up where there are multiple uses of a building, for example where there is a car parking building, a shopping complex and apartments in one building, they can each have their own Body Corporate to manage their interests.  Each of those Bodies Corporate would be members of the Head Body Corporate responsible for overall management of the development.
• Survey and title processes for surveyors will be streamlined.
• The requirement for unanimous decision making will be removed, meaning that decisions can be made by a 75% majority, meaning that difficult owners will not be able to hold up a decision making process.  The changes will also promote participation in Body Corporate decisions.
• Bodies Corporate will have to develop long term maintenance plans which will mean that owners can pay a regular amount for maintenance over time to avoid paying large one off special levies for work required on lifts or other common property.
• Disputes will be able to be dealt with through mediation or adjudication in the Tenancy Tribunal, rather than the Courts.  There is also provision for the Government to establish a dispute resolution service for Unit Title matters.
• There will be greater disclosure requirements placed on Vendors selling Unit Titled properties, meaning that Purchasers will be entitled to certain information including Body Corporate rules, accounts etc before making a decision to purchase a Unit Titled property.  This will help Purchasers to make informed decisions.

Whether all the changes will be incorporated into law is yet to be seen, but for both current Unit Titled property owners and those buying Unit Titled properties, the proposed changes are for the better as they simplify management and decision making.

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