|
One of many proposed changes to the current Sectional Title legislation could open the way to possible abuse of exclusive use areas.
The danger has been identified by Sectional Title doyen Peter Nathan and has to do with the Sectional Title Amendment Bill, due to come before Parliament shortly.
This Bill provides for changes to legislation that could affect the lives of an estimated 2-million people living in 550 000 Sectional Title complexes countrywide.
Nathan, who is organising a series of seminars on the amendments for
trustees and members of bodies corporate, has also written to Government, pointing out flaws in the proposed amendments.
The main problem relates to Section 27 (6), which deals with exclusive use rights that apply to part or parts of the common property such as staff accommodation, parking bays, garages and garden areas.
Technically, says Nathan, an owner with exclusive use rights in terms of the 1971 Sectional Titles Act, or those allocated by a Notarial Deed under the 1986 Act, can currently transfer those rights to another owner in the same Sectional Title scheme.
And in terms of the proposed amendments, the owner would now also be able to enter into a lease contract in respect of the area and register a personal servitude, known as a usufruct, over it.
"So far so good," says Nathan, "but the proposed amendments would also not limit the persons to whom these 'real rights' can be transferred or allocated. One could therefore be faced with the situation where real rights are granted to individuals who are not owners or members of the body corporate.
"And therein hangs the possibility of abuse of such areas. Who is to say to what use they might be put - possibly to the detriment of standards and values in a given complex."
Further complications, he says, could arise from the provisions of section 27 (4)(b), which came into affect when the Sectional Titles Act was amended in 2003 and which provides for the forfeiture of an exclusive use area by a member of a body corporate who ceases to be an owner in a Sectional Title scheme.
"The solution, in my view, is to limit the granting of real rights in exclusive use areas to members of the body corporate - in other words to individuals who have a vested interest in maintaining standards in a Sectional Title complex."
Nathan welcomes other proposed amendments in the Bill, including provision for expediting structural extensions to Sectional Title units and tough new developers' obligations to bodies corporate.
"Another major improvement is that, in the past, if a judgment had been obtained against a body corporate for non-payment of rates and a warrant of execution remained unsatisfied, individual units could be attached. It is now proposed that if an owner has paid his levies up to date, his unit can no longer be attached."
*The seminars are being held at various venues in Gauteng. Nathan can be contacted at (011) 883-1230.
|
