Page 389 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 18 February 2020
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all of it, because Minister Gentleman already has gone through a fair bit in his tabling speech, and I anticipate that we will again go through all the major points to close the debate. But I will highlight a few things.
First, the changes around developers selling off-the-plan properties are very welcome. Once upon a time they were not such an issue because the buildings were much more straightforward and there was not much chance that the developer was going to end up doing something different from what was on the plans they put in. This was something that we talked about in the estimates hearings last year. The issue is that you can sign a contract to buy a unit before the development application potentially has even been put in, and certainly before it has been approved. Off-the-plan purchases are very common now. The developer can then change what is in the development application. The problem is that at present they do not have to communicate this to you at all. In some instances, it probably does not matter that much, but in some instances it really does. If your contract has changed substantially, you should be told about this and you should have the chance to say, “No, that is not what I was planning to buy,” and to get out of it.
The second issue is potentially very important. It is about building management statements. The very tall new apartment buildings which we are seeing in town centres are both very expensive and very complex. There are literally hundreds of highly technical systems and materials used in their construction, everything from fire detection and ventilation to waterproofing, sealants and insulation gaps. Within each of these systems and materials, builders have potentially dozens of different choices. They may have to choose between a product that needs to be inspected every 10 years and one that needs to be inspected every five years. The owners corporation, and usually their strata manager, take over running the building and have to manage all of this complexity. Currently they do this with very little idea of how it was built. That works okay with body corporates, like the one for the complex where I am living, which has one-storey townhouses. They are not hugely complicated; it is very standard construction. But for the new buildings that are going in, that is really not the case.
To make an analogy, can you imagine an airline going out and buying a new plane, which could well cost in the same order of money as one of the new high-rises, and finding that it came with no maintenance plan, no technical manuals and no spare parts. Of course, no airline would do that. But for owners corporations, that is effectively what happens. They are given a building; the certificate of occupancy has been signed off; and that is it. I am very pleased that this bill is going to fix this. I am sure it is something which will not be acknowledged in the future, but it is something that body corporates will appreciate over the next decades.
The bill makes numerous other changes, most of which appear small and unimportant, but I think every one of them will make a real difference to the way strata complexes function and will attempt to address some of the many issues, usually just niggling little issues, that occur when you live in strata complexes.
One of the more important is the changes in methodologies for calculating levies for unit owners. This is really important as we get more mixed-use complexes. It is all
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