› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Levies and Unit Entitlements › Unit Entitlements – Staged development ‘off the plan’ › Current Page
The apartments weren’t all roughly sold at the same time, this was a staged development & some units were sold up to two years apart. Those that got in early got the best prices (while developer was still securing finance) – those that came in later paid more as the developer raised the prices.
However, by the time the Strata Plan was registered all apartments had been sold and it was at that point I believe a valuer should have been brought in to value the apartments – at this time the market value would have been near identical. Instead the developer sent a list of sale prices to the surveyor and the UEs were based on these figures.
I did raise this apparent discrepancy with my strata manager 6 months after we settled and he just blew it off and said it would cost the OC way too much to change the entitlements & there is no way a majority would agree. At that point I was new to strata and just didn’t want to rock the boat.
We have since found out (as Whale mentions above), that if we had resolved this before two years we could have just had the valuations done & sent the certificate to NSW Land & Property this would have been a much cheaper prospect. Clearly our Strata Manager should have been aware of this.
This is being raised at the next EC, and if the valuations were done on sale price then everyone in the complex is affected, either negatively or positively. I guess the vote on this at the AGM will depend on whether there are more of us negatively affected that positively – and also whether, as you say, it is worth the financial outlay.
I have been told that the UE doesn’t only determine your levies but also impacts your Land/Council/Water rates.