Sectional title
maintenance and improvement
Maintenance
The trustees of your body corporate need to maintain the
complex (to keep it more or less in its original condition). These items are provided
for in a budget that deals with routine maintenance and provision for
unforeseen expenses. The trustees normally have discretion to authorise
spending on these items. If the maintenance item is out of the ordinary (e.g.
you need to spend a large sum to resurface your tennis court) a majority of the
owners should approve the expenditure.
Improvements
Sometimes, it may be necessary to improve the property
(perhaps to make it appear more modern).
An improvement that is a “must have” is likely to be non-luxurious but
one that is a “nice to have” is probably luxurious. The common property of a
scheme is owned by all owners in undivided shares. One of the basic principles
of co-ownership is that all owners must agree to any significant or change to
their property.
Maintenance of the
common property,
especially in schemes that have been running for a few years, should hold no
surprises. Improvements to the common
property, on the other hand, are not routine. This uncertainty is
unfortunate because while a non-luxurious improvement must almost always be
authorised by a special resolution of the body corporate, a difficult thing to
achieve, authorising a luxurious improvement always requires a unanimous
resolution, an exceptionally difficult thing to achieve.
The trustees are entitled to suggest a non-luxurious
improvement but there is a specified procedure that must be followed to get the
authorisation. The owners must be notified in writing of the trustees’
suggestion and given 30 days to request a meeting to discuss the proposal. They
must be fully informed of the financial implications and, if any owner requests
a meeting to discuss the improvement, a meeting must be held and the special
resolution taken at the meeting. If the resolution is not taken, the improvement
cannot be made. There are two implications to this provision. The first is that
if no owner requests a meeting within the required thirty day notice period,
the meeting need not be held and no special resolution is required to authorise
that particular improvement. The second is that this is one special resolution
that must be taken at a meeting and cannot be taken by round robin.
