Page 1468 - Week 04 - Thursday, 26 March 2009
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that can be charged for producing a section 75 statement but, unfortunately, smaller size may not lead to smaller cost. Greater risks will be shifted to the managers to make sure they have complied; they can no longer just photocopy the file and pass it over to the buyer.
Because of this increased risk, there may be increased insurance premiums and increased staff costs to watch over the buyers’ solicitors who may now have to go across town and actually personally inspect the file. Staff resources will have to be found to oversight inspections and ensure that pages are not removed and signatures placed where none were before. I have been told that due diligence by sellers’ agents will require them to go through the same pile of documents that were disclosed under the old section 75 requirements anyway. These were some of the reasons why I had intended to pass amendments reverting back to the old section 75 statement requirements. Given, as you would appreciate, this will require chopping down more trees to create more pieces of photocopied paper, you can understand I did not take the decision lightly.
I would point out that we have been hampered in dealing effectively with these amendments by the dearth of knowledge or awareness of the impact of unit title amendments within the Assembly. Broad policy awareness is one thing, but it is quite alarming when it becomes apparent that neither of the ministers’ offices had a deep understanding of the legislative changes. Unfortunately, we are all beholden to the limited time of departmental officials and, to an extent, the parliamentary drafters, who can be put in the invidious position of providing de facto legal advice on extremely complex legislation when it is outside their brief to do this. The need for private members to access professional, objective departmental expertise is becoming increasingly apparent under the majority government where all votes matter.
I will now briefly explain why I have withdrawn my proposed amendments. After receiving convincing representations from the community, particularly from the owners corporation network, I had drafted an amendment requiring that all prospective new owners and tenants be provided with a set of articles pertaining to the units they were contemplating buying into or residing in. Further, new tenants and owners would have to sign an acknowledgement that they had read the articles of the owners corporation for the unit and that they understood that as a unit owner or tenant they must comply with the articles. Pursuant to section 127 of the Unit Titles Act, these articles are:
… taken to be agreements under seal between an owners corporation and each of its members, and between each member and each other member … an occupier of a unit—
that is, a tenant—
is bound by each article of the corporation as if the occupier were the owner of the unit, unless the articles provide otherwise.
So there already exists a legal requirement to abide by the rules but many, possibly most, tenants and owners move into their units unaware of what the conventions and rules and understandings are that govern their new community. Requiring such an
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