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Owners Corporation Act 2006

The Owners Corporation Act 2006 (the Act) will come into operation on 31 December 2007. This will affect several Land Victoria processes.

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Accompanying documents — additional owners corporation information

Extra information will be required when lodging plans that create an owners corporation (the new name for a body corporate). All additional owners corporation information, other than rules, should be contained in a single accompanying document. A separate document will be required for each owners corporation created on a plan.

The details required in the first accompanying document are:
(NB: references below are to the Subdivision Act 1988 and the Subdivision (Procedures) Regulations 2000)

• purpose of owners corporation (mandatory) — Sections 27B(2) or 27C(2)
• address for service of notice (mandatory) — Section 27F(2)(b) and Reg 16(a)
• basis of allocation of entitlement and liability (mandatory) — Section 27F(2)(a)
• where an owners corporation is “Limited” other than as to common property, the limitation(s) will need to be defined (mandatory) — Section 27F(2)(b) and Reg 16(b)
• referred functions and obligations (optional) — Section 27C(4)

There is no prescribed form for the accompanying document; rather a form must be approved by the Registrar. A sample of a proposed form, applicable for an unlimited owners corporation, is included later in this bulletin.

The second page is only relevant where there are “referred functions and obligations”. If both pages are used, both should be signed.

To help customers complete the document, Land Victoria has developed suggested wording, included on the proposed form. This may be appropriate for a ‘standard’ plan, but customers need to carefully consider if the suggested wording is appropriate to a particular plan.

No additional fee is payable to lodge this document.

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Accompanying documents — owners corporation rules

A second document containing the rules (if any) of an owners corporation will:

• be optional
• be notified in a form to be approved by the Director of Consumer Affairs Victoria
• be submitted with a copy of the rules — (Owners Corporation Act 2006 Section 142(2)).

The Owners Corporation Act 2006 provides that an owners corporation:

• may make rules with respect to the matters listed in Schedule 1 of the Act
• be subject to prescribed Model Rules (Reg. 8 and Schedule 1 Owners Corporation Regulations 2007) if no rules are made by an owners corporation
• be subject to a Model Rule if the owners corporation has not made a rule relating to a ‘matter’.

The new Model Rules will apply to existing plans that are subject to the old ‘Standard Rules’.

If an owners corporation makes, amends, or revokes its rules, it must notify the Registrar. The notification must be accompanied by a certified, consolidated copy of the rules.

A fee of $48.50 is payable to lodge notification of rules when lodging the plan.

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Plan format

Changes are required on plan formats with amendments extending the Body Corporate Schedule (renamed the Owners Corporation Schedule). The changes are:

• reference to address for service of notice removed from the schedule, now included in an accompanying document
• limitations removed from the schedule, now included in an accompanying document
• three possible entries now used in the ‘Limitations’ panel; unlimited, limited or limited to common property.

Plans drawn in the old format (plans which must be registered with five years of certification), plans drawn in the existing format will continue to be acceptable.

However, plans prepared and signed by the surveyor after 31 December 2007 should be drawn in the new format.

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Limitations on owners corporations

A plan lodged for registration must specify whether the owners corporation is unlimited or limited (Section 27(3) Subdivision Act 1988).

If the owners corporation is limited — other than to common property — limitation details must be included in the additional owners corporation information document (Regulation 16(b) Subdivision (Procedures) Regulations 2000).

A plan may specify that an owners corporation is limited to the common property (Section 27G Subdivision Act 1988). If so, Sections 48 to 51 of the Act, regarding maintenance and access rights to lots, do not apply to the owners corporation (Section 8 Owners Corporation Act 2006).

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Transitional arrangements for plans

Plans lodged with Land Victoria on or after 31 December 2007 for registration under the Subdivision Act 1988 must comply with the new requirements.

Accompanying documents required must be lodged with plans that create an owners corporation.

Plans currently held unregistered in Land Victoria:

• will be processed as presented, if the Statement of Compliance is presented before 31 December 2007
• will require accompanying documents for EACH owners corporation created if registered ON or AFTER 31 December 2007.

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Owners corporation search report

As advised in Customer Information Bulletin No. 95 (October 2006), Land Victoria is currently extracting body corporate information from registered plans and holding it as electronic data. The body corporate schedule is then reproduced in an electronic format.

A search with the correct ‘diagram’ pages of the plan and a Body Corporate Search Report containing owners corporation information for each owners corporation in the plan will be available from May 2008.

When the Owners Corporation Act 2006 commences, information about the owners corporation will be printed on Land Victoria’s Register Search Statements and title documents.

Owners corporations created by amendments, when registered, will go through the same process of reproducing the owners corporation information as required, in an Owners Corporation Search Report. After registration, this information will be held and made available for public search.

The revised Owners Corporation Search Report will contain an expanded range of information presented in an easy-to-read format that will be uniform across all plan types. An example of the proposed Owners Corporation Search Report is included at the end of this bulletin.