@Basil Oregano said:
…It is two pages long but starts out : “The proprietors for the time being of each lot shall have the right to the exclusive use of that part of the common property that corresponds to the lot number as shown on… [ what amounts to a diagram ] “.This makes me think that, as all the units have changed hands a few times, they may not actually officially have Exclusive Use…
I suspect there could be some confusion about the term “for the time being”. Our OC recently fixed up an ancient mess to do with ‘special privileges’ (=exclusive use) for parking spaces on the common property, redoing it properly with new legal advice. Being in the ACT we needed an unopposed resolution and (among other reasons) had problems with a few owners who did not understand this phrase (They had other problems too such as not really understanding that the parking spaces were common property and assuming the evil EC was plotting to deprive them of property rights they imagined they had). Even when we explained it with direct quotes from our lawyer putting it in plain english, they seemed to willfully not ‘get it’.
Our parking allocations to most owners had not, it turned out, been validly assigned 30 years ago. To fix it we would have to pass an unopposed resolution (NSW requires only a special resolution). Just a few owners did not have the same use of the common property as the rest so they could reasonably object to a motion that only reinstated status quo while leaving them out. We had to come up with a plan that was the most fair and equitably possible in the circumstances. Only that could be given effect on an appeal to the ACT tribunal if a few owners objected as seemed likely and did indeed occur.
Anyway, enough of our recent issues…
The ‘proprietors for the time being of each lot’ means whoever owns the lot at any instant. When you own the unit you are the proprietor and the right of exclusive use belongs to you. At the instant that the lot changes hands to someone else they are the proprietor and the right belongs to them. The effect is that right runs with the lot even though it is expressed as belonging to the proprietor. So, if the exclusive use rights were validly assigned to the proprietor of a lot ‘for the time being’ they would still validly attach to the present owner of that lot.