Email is a curse! Emails between committee members, that never reach the body corporate manager, have been held by Adjudicators to be body corporate records. Ignorance of their creation is no excuse for the body corporate failing to capture them, or to hand them over on a search. Conducting discussions by telephone or, better still, within a committee meeting, helps to minimise the bulk of body corporate records produced.
stratalaw
Strata Tip 63 – Concept and design – Minimise the dangers of mixed use
Separate different uses physically, and if possible legally. In community title schemes opposites do not attract. The archetypal dispute ridden complex is the one that contains residences plus a restaurant and bar. Mixed use executed correctly can provide significant advantages both in terms of the marketing and sale of your product and the lived experience of the buyers. Physical separation is great, (for example noise shielding) but so is legal separation. Consider for example, a BMS or layered arrangement to legally separate your commercial uses from your residential uses.
Strata Tip 63 – Buying – Verification of financial records
Make sure your accountant sights all of the Form 6’s. When conducting the verification report process, the buyer’s accountant may attend on site to extract relevant financial information from the seller’s records. That is an ideal time for the accountant to also sight each one of the POA Form 6’s (letting appointments), to check that they are the correct version, properly signed and that there are no significant flaws in them. Ask your verifying accountant to do this, as part of their verification report.
Article: Commercial Tenants Rights Upheld
The right of commercial tenants in Queensland to sue their Body Corporate directly has been upheld.
Read the Article – Tenants Rights Upheld for more on the recent QCAT decision.