Body Corporate Inspection of Records

Hello again.

I have been recommended by the solicitor working on my behalf to have a Body Corporate Inspection of Records as a further check to fully be across any issues with the complex

Due to the cost, under $500 I assume it would makes sense to have it done

Any guidance would be great as a first time Investment purchase

TT

 

Yes. You're solicitor is right. Get a strata report. He/she should be able to order the report for you.

 

Thanks Alan, appreciated

 

There are no strata reports in Victoria.

Rather, the vendor statement / section 32 needs to include an Owners Corporation certificate (which sets out lots of financial and building information), the OC rules, insurance details and the minutes from the last AGM. All this information must be included or the vendor statement is defective. There is no charge to you.

 

Hi Kate
The property is in Qld if that makes any difference

Thanks so much

 

I don't know anything about Queensland property law sorry!

 

No probs Kate, thanks and have a good night

 

@Tobytom, I would do as your solicitor recommended.

I bought an Apartment in QLD earlier this year. The BC report was quite insightful.

 

Thanks as always Kierank

 

You could always do it yourself ?, $500 seems a bit rich to me for a clerk to jump on a bus and sit for an hour reviewing the records. It's only a matter a making an appointment with the BC managers and looking back through the records for anything alarming. If you have a good reason (or want to make on up) to come to brisbane, It would be cheaper to fly up and combine the two

 

@Tobytom I did this a few months ago for a townhouse in Brisbane. My solicitor recommended it as well. They indicated ordering a full body corp roll could be a few hundred dollars as well.

However I called the bodycorp manager and found I could order and pay for these on their website. I paid a small fee (around $60) to look through the body corp roll myself at their office. I also got to ask the staff there questions on the property. There weren't many records in my instance.

 

Agree with some others - in QLD it is law that the body corporate must make all records available to an owner or 'interested person' (someone under contract to purchase) for a fee. The fee for non-owners is also law, it's around $30-something dollars. There is a statutory fee for printing/copying, but you can look to your heart's content.

You can come in to the office and view everything except for things that are of a defamatory or legal privilege nature. You can also request documents be sent to you for the same fee, but you have to ask for specific things e.g. 2016 AGM minutes.

If you pay the solicitor for a report, they or their agent will come and do the physical search, and will then provide a report to explain how it all looks. The report is provided by the lawyer or search agent, not by the body corporate.

It can be done yourself - but if you didn't know about searching records - I'd say it would be a false economy to do it yourself as you won't be thorough enough.

Bodies corporate have to keep many records forever (i.e. no 7 year destruction) so we have often delivered ten or more archive storage boxes to someone in a conference room for them to go through...

 

Thank you so much. Have ordered the records and some historical issues of water leaks (twice over 20 years). Have to weigh up if I use one of clauses to pull out of the deal or use it as a negotiation tool