Fine Print

Unit titling and owners corporation questions

A unit in Canberra is not a small house with a shared driveway. It is a lot on a units plan, with an owners corporation that holds the common property, raises contributions, and insures the building under the Unit Titles (Management) Act 2011 (ACT). Lucas’s questions are for the reader who likes the courtyard and has not yet opened the certificate. They are not a set of levy amounts. Levies change, and the certificate in your contract is the snapshot that counts for that sale.

If the papers show a house on its own Crown lease, you are in the wrong guide. Go to the lease note. If the papers show a units plan number, stay here.

• Confirm there is a registered units plan, and write down its number.
• Find your unit on the plan, including any subsidiary lot such as a car space or courtyard.
• Mark what is unit property and what is common property on a copy of the plan.
• Find the unit title sale certificate and read its date. Ask your conveyancer if it sits inside the dating rule for the sale.
• Read who is on the executive committee and who the manager is, if a manager is named.
• Read the insurance block: insurer, type of policy, and whether a certificate of currency is attached. Do not invent a sum.
• Read the contributions: what the certificate says is payable for the unit, the period, and whether it is shown as paid.
• Read whether the corporation has borrowings, and whether a developer control period is said to have ended.
• Read the rules, or the extract the contract includes, before you assume pets, floors, or balcony screens are fine.
• Ask whether a building management statement or alternative rules are part of the bundle.
• Ask your conveyancer what a special contribution, if one is mentioned, would require of you after completion.
• Keep lender package fees in a different note. They are not owners corporation contributions.

A units plan is not a house lease with extra neighbours

On a house block you are dealing with one Crown lease and the building on it. In a units plan you own the unit, and you are a member of the owners corporation that deals with common property: stairs, roofs, gardens, sometimes pipes the plan treats as common. The plan, not the marketing suite, draws the line. A courtyard you sat in may be part of the unit, or it may be common property you have a special right over, or it may be common property you should not enclose. The plan answers. Ask your conveyancer to show you the sheet.

The Crown lease still exists over the parcel. The owners corporation can have business with that lease, including, in the certificate’s world, whether anyone has applied to extend it. You do not ignore the lease because a manager sends the invoices. You read both. The lease guide on this site is the companion, not a substitute for the plan.

New buildings can still be in a developer control period. During that period the Act restricts what the owners corporation may agree. The sale certificate’s determined information includes whether that period has ended, according to the corporate register. If the certificate says it has not ended, ask what contracts the developer disclosed and what that means for rules and for service contractors. Do not treat a showroom promise as a rule.

Contributions, funds, and insurance as questions

The unit title sale certificate, given under section 119 of the Unit Titles (Management) Act 2011, is required in the contract for a unit in a registered units plan. The sale rules expect that certificate to be dated not earlier than three months before the property was first advertised or offered or listed. A buyer who has a contract can ask for an update certificate. Those dating rules are why you look at the date before you look at the personality of the lobby. If the date worries your conveyancer, order the conversation they recommend. Do not “update” the certificate yourself by calling a neighbour.

The Minister’s determination of what the certificate contains has included, among other things, executive committee contacts, the manager, insurance policy details and certificates of currency, contribution details for the unit and whether they are paid, the balance of funds, developer control, borrowings, sustainability infrastructure, service contracts, and whether an extension of the Crown lease has been sought. Read those headings in the certificate you were given. If a heading is blank, ask why. If a heading shows a figure, that figure is the certificate’s figure, not a figure Zenith Lens adopts or forecasts. Contributions can be raised again. A healthy fund balance on one date is not a promise that a roof will never need money.

Insurance listed on the certificate is the corporation’s insurance, described there. Read the type and the insurer’s name, and look at the currency certificate if it is attached. Then ask an insurance broker or insurer, if you want personal advice, what contents cover and what landlord or owner cover you may still want. We do not advise on a policy and we do not quote a premium. A reader who skips contents cover because “the building is insured” has mixed two policies. Ask someone who can see both.

Rules, minutes, and living there

Rules cover the dull things that become disputes: washing on balconies, floor coverings, pets, parking, renovations. Read them before exchange if they are in the bundle, not on the day you want to install timber floors. Alternative rules, if registered, should appear via the extract the contract is supposed to carry. If you cannot find rules at all, that absence is a question for your conveyancer, not a finding that there are none.

Minutes, when they are with the papers or available for inspection as the certificate describes, are where special contributions and arguments show up. Read the last year if you can. You are looking for decisions that cost money or restrict the unit, not for gossip. If a minute mentions building defects and a lawsuit, hand that page to your conveyancer and, if they suggest it, to a building inspector. Do not decide the lawsuit’s merit from a sentence in minutes.

After completion, the first-month guide covers the introduction letter to the manager. Before completion, the task is narrower: know the unit number, the contribution position the certificate states, and the rules you would be annoyed to discover later. Annoyance is not a legal remedy. Reading is.

Questions to put beside the lender questions

A lender’s package fee and an owners corporation contribution can leave your account in the same month. They are not the same payment. One is described on a lender’s public page, if it is described at all. The other is described on the unit title sale certificate and in later notices from the corporation. When you budget, keep two lines. This guide will not fill either line with a number. Your certificate and the lender’s own documents will.

Ask your conveyancer how unpaid contributions are dealt with at completion under the contract. Sellers’ adjustments are a conveyancing mechanic, not a guess you should make from the certificate alone. Ask whether the contract requires an update certificate. Then decide, with that advice, whether the unit is the purchase you still want. The courtyard can be lovely and the papers can still be the reason you walk away. Walking away before exchange is allowed to be the outcome of reading.

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