The Unit Titles Act 2010, which is the primary legislation relating to the creation and management of developments such as apartment blocks, was passed into law by Parliament today.

Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson says people who live and work in unit title developments have been waiting a long time for this bill to be passed by Parliament.

“The previous Act was nearly 40 years old and the building development and property management market has undergone massive change during that time," he says

"Under the old Act, body corporates need unanimous agreement to undertake any maintenance or repairs on buildings. That might have been appropriate when apartment buildings only had half a dozen units but is too restrictive in a building with 100 units or more. Under the new law, this is changed to a 75 per cent agreement threshold."

Mr Williamson says the Unit Titles Act is a small, but integral part of a package of solutions the government is looking at for those people living in leaky apartment buildings.

"These new Act includes provisions that lower voting thresholds, clarify ownership of common property and give the body corporate wider responsibilities for repair and maintenance of the building.”

Although the Act was now law, Mr Williamson says some technical and operational details had to be sorted out before the Act would come into force.

“The Department of Building and Housing will release a discussion document for public comment on these detailed issues. We’re not going to muck around with developing these regulations,” Mr Williamson says.


Background Information:

The new Unit Titles Act 2010 makes a number of changes to the Unit Titles Act 1972. The most significant changes are those that:

•clarify the definition of a principal unit − a principal unit must contain or be contained in a building;
•streamline the process under which a development is built in stages;
•create a sensible and fair system for calculating how much a unit owner should contribute to body corporate common funds;
•state that the body corporate owns the common property;
•clarify and articulate the rights and responsibilities of unit owners and bodies corporate;
•create fair and transparent governance and management structures;
•lower the voting threshold for body corporate decisions from a unanimous resolution to a 75 per cent agreement;
•provide a comprehensive disclosure regime for buyers and sellers, developers and bodies corporate;
•provide a fully integrated and cost-effective dispute resolution service for unit title disputes, through the Tenancy Tribunal.

Ends

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