Strata Act Entitled The Certificate Of Title

By Author: Rachael Kwawegen
Total Articles: 73
Comment this article

Property owners in Australia found a great relief in the Strata Act, introduced in 1961, which entitled owners in Australia to receive a title deed for the property they owned. Prior to that there were many Australians who owned part of buildings, but they did not have any deed. As a result, they could only own the property, but could not lease it out or sell it. This disappointed the owners who wished the situation would change and it did with this Act. With the introduction of this Act, the owner was entitled to a Strata Title. This title was a certificate of title for that portion of the building he owned. The property owners in Australia were quite happy with the strata act, because now they could lease the property or sell it whenever they wanted. In Queensland the strata title was known as 'building unit title', which means the owner owns title for the unit he owned. so in a common property, the owner had a strata title of the portion he owned and he had the freedom to do whatever he wanted with the portion he owned.

It is called a strata title because the owner owned title to a Strata, or 'lots'. These lots were ...
... portions of a common building, where the common properties were commonly shared by the owners of the building. The common property can be anything like roof, swimming pool, driveway, meeting room, the external walls, lifts, staircase, common garden and other facilities used commonly by the people occupying the building. etc. All expenses to the maintenance of the common property should be equally shared by all the lot owners. When an owner buys a lot and when the lot is registered and transferred to the owner, he becomes a part of the Owners Corporation. According to the Ownership Corporation, the people who buy's the lot not only own the lot, but have the rights to use the common property. The owner of the lot becomes member of Body Corporate, which is a legal entity created to deal with physical property issues which occur when the people live together in a building. The common areas are controlled and administered by the Body Corporate Manager who works for the body corporate. The owners have responsibilities to come together and discuss and agree on various matters regarding the common property and this is known as strata management with a Strata Manager, to act on their behalf.

The Strata Agency is a boutique strata management company founded by Rachael Kwawegen, a Licensed Real Estate and Strata Managing Agent with 15 years experience in the Property Sector. Our Strata Title services all areas of Sydney specialising in prestige strata schemes and developments.