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[Sujenna]

Regarding this post (https://www.flatchat.com.au/topic/purchasing-unmarketable-land-from-bc/), I also lived in a block of 8 on the ground floor in Manly in Sydney with a worthless scrap of land behind my 1 bedroom apartment. Well….it wasn’t really worthless to anyone except me as no one else could access the three rooms located behind my built in wardrobes. You see, the builder in 1959 when the building was built and land wasn’t at a premium as it is now in that area, hadn’t built into those brick rooms for unknown reasons. All of the units above were 2 bedroom and the brick walls and room divides carried down through the 4 levels of the apartment building.

So I had this brilliant idea where I would purchase the void cavity from the body corporate and extend my apartment into a 2 bedroom apartment also. A meeting was held and it was agreed that if Council passed the plan, the work could progress with the formula as follows; a valuation of a completed 2 bedroom apartment, minus the cost of the building work, with the residue of value to be split with 50% going to the body corporate for repairs etc. while I received a 50% discount on the money I paid to the BC for using my initiative.

Council did approve the work and it wasn’t until the crusty old solicitor on the top floor became jealous that someone was getting something he wasn’t getting. So he lobbied all other owners to withdraw their approval and I was left with architect (see attached plan), valuation and legal fees as well as the Council DA & BA fees.

Good luck with getting the go ahead as all you need is one person to dissent. I suppose you could start with 3 independent valuations and see where you get with that!!!!!

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[Jimmy-T]

Sujenna wrote:

the work could progress with the formula as follows; a valuation of a completed 2 bedroom apartment, minus the cost of the building work, with the residue of value to be split with 50% going to the body corporate for repairs etc. while I received a 50% discount on the money I paid to the BC for using my initiative.

And there’s your issue.  The formula established in a Supreme Court ruling was that the owners corp would be compensated on the basis of A-(B+C) where A = the estimated value of the improved property; B = the estimated current value of the property and C = the cost of the improvements, including the legal paperwork and plans.

The benefit of your initiative would be accrued as the value of your property grew over time. The “crusty old solicitor” may have just been following established law and precedent.

I would go back to your committee with a renewed proposal based on the above principle but without the “initiative” reward.  If they refuse, wait a year and try again under the new laws under which they would have to explain their decisions for refusal.

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[Sujenna]

I have since sold up some years ago and moved elsewhere, and as far as I am aware that plot of void unused land still sits as vacant as the day the apartment block was built in 1959 on prime harbour real estate in Sydney. The old folk owner/residents have all passed on, and the newer owners were poisoned by the ‘crusty old solicitor’ bad mouthing me. His initial objection to the building work was that placing a window (the size of a car windscreen) in the rear wall would cause the building to collapse. Despite my obtaining a structural engineers report, my representations were useless.

Since the building is getting on a bit in years now, I expect a developer will come along and pull down the current building and put a newer one up which will use the available land to better advantage. BTW it was a company title apartment block.

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