Page46 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 2 December 2020
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certificate. An up-to-date unit title certificate is important so that the buyer has all relevant information, at a time that is as close as possible to the date of settlement of the sale. This note will remind buyers of their ability to request an update certificate.
The bill also removes the requirement to provide, as part of the sale of residential property, the minutes of owners corporation and executive committee meetings held in the two years before the day the property was first advertised or offered for sale or listed with an agent. This information will instead be required to be included in a unit title
certificate, which is prepared under section 119 of the Unit Titles (Management) Act.
The requirement for a seller to provide unit titles corporation and executive committee minutes as part of the contract for sale has cost implications for the seller. The seller must provide these minutes; however, managing agents for an owners corporation may charge at their discretion to prepare the minutes. The unit title certificate, on the other hand, carries a maximum recoverable fee.
This amendment also intends to make clear who has responsibility to prepare these minutes. Section 119 of the Unit Titles Management Act makes it clear that the information in a unit title certificate is to be prepared by the owners corporation. Currently it is not clear who has responsibility for preparing the minutes to be included as part of the documents in the sale.
The bill amends section 253G of the Planning and Development Act. This section relates to community concessional leases. The bill substitutes the reference to “certificate of compliance” in section 253G with “certificate of occupancy”.
This section currently provides that if a community concessional lease includes a building and development provision which requires certain works to be completed, a community concessional lease provision means a provision stating that certain subsections of section 253G which relate to the uses of the Lease Act commence on the issue of the certificate of compliance.
In practice there can be a delay to issuing a certificate of compliance. A certificate of occupancy, on the other hand, is required as evidence that the building is fit for occupation and is, in practice, a more appropriate indicator that works required under the building and development provision of the lease have been completed.
The bill also amends the Planning and Development Act to ensure that a dealing in relation to the concessional lease with a building and development provision must be consented to by the Planning and Land Authority. Currently such dealings do not require the consent of the Planning and Land Authority, and there is a risk that the concessional lease could be transferred to an entity who does not meet the eligibility requirements to be a concessional lessee.
The bill clarifies that the definition of an eligible person in the Unit Titles Management Act includes a person who enters into a contract for sale for the unit in relation to which the access to information is required, removing any doubt that a buyer may request a unit title certificate under section 119 of the act.
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