Strata Living

As the owner of a Strata Title unit you acquire separate legal title to your unit and, depending on the way the strata scheme has been structured, the car space, balcony, garden, terrace or storage area attaching to your unit. Your "property"
is generally limited by the inner skins of the outer walls and the ceiling and floor of your unit. In effect if the building was destroyed you own the airspace where your unit had been located.

When you become entitled to own a strata title unit you also acquire a share in and right to use the common property. The common property is the shared areas of the building and the land surrounding the building, which areas that are not part of any other lot in the strata scheme.

Your rights to the common property are shared by all of the unit owners. Your interest in the ownership of the common areas is in direct proportion to your unit entitlement, which also determines the amount of levies you will need to
pay to the owners' corporation for the regular running, and maintenance and upkeep costs of the strata scheme. The unit entitlement also represents your voting rights at meetings of the owners' corporation.

The very nature of a strata scheme means that you will be living closely with a group of people, many of whom you have never met before, in a sort of vertically-planned village. What you do with your unit and the common property may impact on the other unit owners in the same way any other owner's use may impact on you.

Therefore, a significant body of laws, rules and regulations have been made under strata titles legislation to govern the conduct of unit owners in the strata scheme, so any one owner's use does not impact in a harmful or undesirable way on the other owners. These laws, rules and regulations also attempt to resolve any disputes between the various owners.

LOT OWNER - DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Where can you check to see if you are a registered owner of a lot in a strata scheme?

The fact that you are a registered owner of a lot in a strata scheme is shown:

• at the Land and Property Information NSW (LPI) where your name is recorded on the certificate of title for the lot as the registered owner of the lot; and


• on the strata roll where your name appears as the owner of the lot following entry in the roll by the owners'orporation.

At the LPI you can obtain copies of registered strata plans, certificates of title for common property and individual lots and by-laws that have been made and registered by owners' corporations. The strata plan will show the exact size of each unit and the common property.

You can also obtain information about the strata scheme or your lot from the owners' corporation or the strata manager upon request by written application.

Do you know your duties and responsibilities as a lot owner?

As a lot owner you have numerous duties and responsibilities imposed on you by certain Acts, regulations and by-laws. It is important that you are aware of these duties and that you abide by them.

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