Review of the Unit Titles Act 1972 - Discussion Document, May 2006
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About the Unit Titles Act 1972
What is the Unit Titles Act?
The Unit Titles Act 1972 covers a type of property ownership, known as a unit title. Developments with this type of ownership usually have more than one owner, and are typically apartment blocks, townhouses, office blocks and industrial or retail buildings.
Each person or group that holds ownership in a unit title development is known as a unit owner. A unit owner owns a defined part of the building, such as an apartment, and also shares ownership of common property with all the other unit owners. Common property is often areas such as lifts, lobbies or driveways.
Together, all the unit owners in a unit title development make up a body corporate. The body corporate has responsibility for maintaining and managing the common property, and for managing the development as a whole.
The Act covers:
- the creation, ownership and management of unit title property
- the setting up, powers and responsibilities of bodies corporate.
We have defined the words in bold in the glossary.
Why review the Act?
The Act is no longer working well.
The rapid increase in the number and types of unit title developments, particularly in the Auckland region, has raised many issues not covered by the Act. For example, many parts of the Act were designed for small residential blocks, and so do not work well for large-scale multi-unit developments. Work carried out by the Law Commission and the Auckland Regional Council, in consultation with unit owners and the building industry, has shown that the Act needs major change.
The proposals will help with the complex relation - ships created by unit title developments. Unit owners, bodies corporate, tenants, developers and councils need to be able to work together successfully on things such as financial management, information disclosure, consumer protection, staged developments and dispute resolution.
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