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[rhea]

Hi Everyone,

Recently the Quantity Surveyor inspection identified a discrepancy when comparing notation on the registered Strata Plans (SP) versus actual square meterage of individual units. According to the SP the apartment block has 12 units (U) and 12 Store Rooms (SR). Not all SR are the same size according to the SP (9 x SR -40 sq ft and 3x SR -25 sq ft). Additionally, the SP did not include the outline for an extra SR.

OC is looking at re-allocating storage space by handing the Strata Title back and issuing a new title by NSW Land Registry Services. This would involve handing back the title, sub divide and have it re-certified by the Council and assess for stamp duty. This is all very convoluted, costly, with potential legal ramification.

1- The proposal by some owner’s was to accept the new title by resolving it via general/special resolution at AGM. Can such an issue be resolved in AGM? What is majority the needed to pass this proposal?

2- Who pays for the legal cost for new title, re-certification, and stamp duty? Does it come from Administrative Funds or the affected owner has to pay?

3- Some owners with mortgage will have to approach their lender with new SP which may incur a fee. Who would compensate the fee incurred for submitting the new plan?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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[Jimmy-T]

It feels like a sledgehammer to crack a walnut and any benefits that anyone might accrue in the fairer sharing of unit entitlements would be massively outweighed by the legal costs in the plan that you propose.

I believe there are enough provisions in the Act for the transfer of common and lot property to and from the owners corp, plus the reallocation of unit entitlements, that this could be done quickly and inexpensively without having to redraw the strata plan.

For instance, the owners corp could take ownership of the storage rooms and offer them to rent back to the lot owners under binding exclusive use by-laws, at rents based on the size of the rooms, tied to annual CPI increases.

Or you could just agree on a reallocation of the Unit Entitlements of the current storage rooms (to be rubber-stamped at NCAT) then find a way of bringing the undocumented storage room into the system by transferring ownership to the lot owner then adjusting their UEs accordingly.

Either way, there must be a more elegant, simpler and much less expensive solution available than re-registering the entire strata plan.

And even if you don’t have unanimity (because someone will lose), the prospect of paying extravagant amounts to fix a relatively minor problem – after which they will still lose out – should get the recalcitrants on board.

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[rhea]

Thanks Jimmy for your sage advice.

Apologies forgot to mention the property is in NSW. All the 12 lots have same Unit Entitlement (UE) of 30 each. The UE includes Unit plus one Storeroom combined.

Although 12 units have a Storeroom,  they are not numbered sequentially on the plans, neither are they all clustered together and they are not all the same size as per the Strata Plan and Quantity Surveyor’s measurement. A discrepancy of up to 4 meters was noted when making the comparison.

There is a dispute between the owners regarding the extra Storeroom because of its historical use, location and based on individuals interpretation as they do not want to relocate from their current storeroom. Of course once allocated, the extra Storeroom will probably become cleaners room (which all owner’s have agreed upon). As I mentioned the scenario is convoluted.

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