New laws blow cobwebs off old-style flatting

Remember Company Title – the Downton Abbey of apartment living? Well, not only is it not going away, in NSW it’s being polished up like the family silver, and made attractive to a new generation of the non-landed gentry.

While we’ve all been steadfastly untwisting our knickers trying to make sense of strata law in NSW, that creaky old flat-dwelling concept has been quietly enjoying a bit of a buff-up.

Company Title was the direct forerunner of strata, allowing different people to live in the same apartment block, occupying separate units of different sizes and paying a fair share of the upkeep of the whole building.

The problem was that you didn’t actually own your home – you owned shares in the company that owned the building and those shares allowed you to live in a specific apartment.

Not only that, you had to show yourself to be acceptable to the other owners – sorry,  shareholders –  before you could move in, although once you were in, you got to help choose the next lot of would-be neighbours. Renters were, generally, infra dig.

However, the banks didn’t like this idea of you not owning the bricks and mortar that they were lending you the money to buy .

So 50 years ago, NSW convinced the world that owning air space within common property walls, floors and ceilings was a much safer bet (really?) and so strata title was born.  Hurrah!

Half a century later, some fine old Company Title buildings still exist – and mortgage providers are still suspicious of them – while the idea of being able to choose your neighbours and restrict letting seems like a unit-dweller’s Utopia.

However, one of the big drawbacks, apart from measly mortgages, is that when you do have a dispute with neighbours, your only recourse is to the Supreme Court – no Fair Trading mediation or CTTT adjudications for the company entitled.

But that could all change with proposals that will mean simple, low stakes disputes can be dealt with by a local court.

You can read a summary of the proposed changes to Company Title Law HERE.  It contains links to the proposed Bill and the NSW Attorney General’s introduction.

Would you trade a lower mortgage for more control over who your neighbours were? Comment here or go to The Forum to join the debate.