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[ozzy]

Having purchased our first strata property nearly 50 years ago, and having owned a few more over the years (all in NSW), we thought we knew a bit about strata living. However we have now encountered something that is outside our experience.

It is a complex of houses/villas that are all separate buildings, with no shared walls, on one block of land. We have been told that each lot owner is responsible for maintaining their whole house. We are vaguely aware of community title schemes that work like that, but this is strata title.

From the strata records I can see that the OC pays to maintain a shared driveway, the garden along the driveway, and an entry gate. That seems fair enough, but OC also pays to insure all the individual houses, and also perhaps pays for smoke alarm testing and replacement (if necessary).

At least some other lot maintenance appears to be organised by and paid for by the OC, but with each lot owner reimbursing the OC for their portion (example seen in the accounts was for external painting of the houses).

The strata plan has a note saying “No part of the building shall be common property other than common service lines”. I Googled part of that exact phrase in the hope I might find examples of other similar schemes, but about all I got was an un-requested AI opinion that ‘In NSW, the premise that “no part of the building shall be common property” is incorrect’. That might have been my response too until I saw this place, but perhaps I just don’t get out much.

I certainly did not find anybody talking about how such schemes work in practice, or their advantages and disadvantages. Is there a name for such schemes, that I can search for, or does anybody have a pointer to some information?

Thanks.

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[UberOwner]

We own a place in VIC that seems to work like that. OC pays for driveway and tree-trimming in between properties,  and issues with sewerage. Shared walls (of which there are very few) seem to be a shared cost between the owners that share them. Roof repairs are covered by individual owners. I don’t know if this has evolved, or if it’s how the strata plan is set up. We’re about to embark on a garage door replacement which is a mix of singles and doubles so I’m not sure how costs will be shared.

In your case, it sounds like the strata plan is pretty clear. Your strata fees should be fairly low. The main issue I can see is what you do if someone fails to maintain their part of the property and causes damage to another property or negatively affects the amenity or value of other properties. That can happen in any other suburban street but in strata you have a few more levers you can pull and a Tribunal to help.

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[strataact]

Sounds a lot like class-B units in ACT Strata.  Our townhouse complex in ACT is Class B, and pretty much runs as you have described.  Individual owners are responsible for heir own unit maintenance, but painting and colors need to align with the agreed common scheme.

The Strata fees cover common ground garden, shared driveway+lights, and our biggest cost, the Building insurance.

You might also want to consider stormwater and sewer services.  In our complex Owners are responsible for those inside lot boundaries that serve individual units, but the complex is responsible for shared lines and those in common property.

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[ozzy]

Thanks, for responding.

UberOwner, I subsequently found someone saying that schemes like this are not uncommon in Victoria.

If my understanding about this scheme in NSW is correct, then if it was decided to replace doors on more than one lot, it might be possible to get SM on behalf of OC to arrange it. However, the quote and invoice would have to give separate cost for each lot, and the owners would contribute according to that. I’m not sure how it would be done if it was expensive work that could cause cash-flow trouble – maybe the owners would have to pay up-front. That did not seem to happen for the relatively inexpensive painting that we saw. We sighted some quotes addressed to the SM for much more expensive roof repairs, but unfortunately don’t have the accounts for that period to see how it was done.

I don’t see why an individual owner could not just get their door replaced, subject to not running foul of any by-law, like the usual NSW model “appearance of lot” one, which they have adopted.

The capital works portion of the levy is indeed low. That was one of the first things we noticed, before we understood the CP situation.

We were also surprised to see that a request to install solar panels sailed through a general meeting with no reference to a common property rights by-law (they don’t have such a by-law). That made more sense when we realised that the lot roof is not CP. Strictly speaking, they might be turning a bit of a blind eye there though, because solar panel installation usually requires at least some work on the main switchboard, which is CP.

Perhaps neglected maintenance would be covered by “appearance of lot”. Dunno, I’ll have to think about that and maybe read through the by-laws again with my now-changed CP viewpoint.

Jimmy, sorry I didn’t want to mention the exact number of lots, but it is more than ten, so no, not a two-lot scheme.

I only mentioned AI because I took the response as a bit of a clue that such schemes are a bit rare, to the extent that AI confidently declared that they don’t exist at all in NSW. Actually I have close to zero confidence in AI. Every day I see that AS (Artificial Stupidity) is generally easier to achieve.

Thanks again, still more for me to consider.

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[strataact]

Have you verified there is a common main swichboard.  Again in our ACT class B units, each townhouse has there own board and meter box on the lot.  A number have Solar installed and in all cases only that Units board was affected.

Then there is another meter and board for our CP driveway lights .

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[Jimmy-T]

ozzy wrote:

does anybody have a pointer to some information?

This sounds very much like Community Title which operates like strata… up to apoint Here’s a guide from a legal firm:

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[Jimmy-T]

ozzy wrote:

The strata plan has a note saying “No part of the building shall be common property other than common service lines”. I Googled part of that exact phrase in the hope I might find examples of other similar schemes, but about all I got was an un-requested AI opinion that ‘In NSW, the premise that “no part of the building shall be common property” is incorrect’.

AI can be notoriously unreliable when it comes to strata issues. It often scrapes the media for references from all over Australia, assuming we have the same strata laws in every state – which we most definitely don’t.

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[Newcastle_SM]

Hi, Ozzy

NSW Advice
Sounds like you have what we call a “dotted line plan”. Not as common as the solid line plans that create a LOT more common property. If you take a look at the strata plan you will likely find the building is defined by a dotted line rather than a solid line. There is also an accompanying reference to say that there will be no common property in the lot including the buildings and a stratum defined (3m down 6m up).

These are strata plans and they still have some common property responsibilities like common services that service multiple lots (water/sewer/elec), fencing of the strata boundary and if there is a common driveway that would be included as well. These schemes can usually have a lower levy requirement due to the lack of CP roofs/walls etc.

These schemes still have all of the other requirements that a normal strata would incur like needing to insure all buildings.

I also wanted to emphasis Jimmy-T’s point about ai. It “hallucinates” often when it comes to strata as there is often a lot of nuance on how things work and when it scours the internet looking for patterns to pass off as answers it will find a lot of people getting it very, very wrong.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Jimmy-T

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[ozzy]

Thanks for the responses and sorry for the belated acknowledgement. I ticked the box for notification of follow-up replies, but that does not seem to be happening, even after I updated my email address (which had changed).

It is definitely Strata Title not Community Title, and yes, the outlines of the individual houses are shown in dotted/dashed lines on the strata plan. Perhaps at the end of the day, it is not really that much different to Community Title.

Their biggest admin fund costs are insurance and gardening. I’m not sure what the arrangement is with the latter. There are some hedges and beds on common property, but the gardeners employed by the OC, who happened to be on site one day when we were there, appear to also tend to individual lot areas adjacent to the driveway.

The houses each have a small switchboard in their garages, but there is a main board where the letter boxes are on the street. That is where all the electricity meters are. Based on when it was constructed, I doubt that the original meters would have supported the two-way metering required for solar.

Please stop beating me up about AI. I did not seek an AI opinion, it was thrust upon me, and as I said before, I only took it as a hint that strata schemes like this are not very common. I still think that they are relatively rare here in NSW.

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[Jimmy-T]

ozzy wrote:

Please stop beating me up about AI. I did not seek an AI opinion, it was thrust upon me, and as I said before, I only took it as a hint that strata schemes like this are not very common. I still think that they are relatively rare here in NSW.

I don’t think anyone is beating you up about AI – it was just an opportunity to make the point that it can’t be trusted, especially when it comes to strata.  I hear that strata managers are getting frustrated by owners who consult AI and then argue with them on the basis that AI is a lot smarter than the average strata manager, which may be true when it comes to history and geography but not so much on something as complicated as strata.

Good luck with sorting out the issues in your scheme.  Generally speaking, an amicable consensus is going to serve you better than trying to interpret the letter of the law.
BTW, and don’t tell anyone this, but I use AI all the time … but I always double check the “facts”.  When it comes to NSW strata, AI can be about as reliable as a bloke who’s a friend of someone at your brother’s work who used to rent a flat in Melbourne.

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