Important responsibilities of an apartment owner

Summary:

It is important as an apartment owner that you know all of your responsibilities. Ideally you need to learn it before you own an apartment.

Paying your Body Corporate levies and costs on time is the most important thing to do. If you don’t pay it, you’re going to get penalised, but the big one is, you’ve got no vote. You have no say and you cannot actually complain or do anything.

Adhere to the Body Corporate rules. These are things like you are not allowed to be washing on the balcony.

Make sure your tenants and guests adhere to the Body Corporate rules.

If your tenants are not adhering to the Body Corporate rules, you are going to be liable.

Make sure your apartment does not affect the buildings of other apartments. For example, structure. You cannot make modifications to your apartment that affect the structure of the overall building.

Allow access to your unit, if the Body Corporate requires. This is an important one as a couple of times a year the Body Corporate has to do certain checks. Those checks have to be in place for you to get your insurance and your building insurance.

Informing Body Corporate of your contact details for any changes.

If renting your apartment, you need to give them your property manager’s details.  You do not want the body corporate ringing you if there is a problem with the tenants.

TRANSCRIPTION:

What do apartment owners have to do? Good day, Andrew Murray here from Apartment Specialists. You are about to own an apartment. So what does that mean? What are your responsibilities?

It is really important you understand and it is pretty simple, but there's a few you may not be aware of. However, you really need to know all of your responsibilities. Obviously, you need to learn it before you own an apartment. I've got my nine main points of the things you have to do. You can do more than that if you want to be part of the committee, so you're more involved in running your building. But as an owner, if you just want to live in the building and do the bare minimum, these are the things you have to do.

Number one: Pay your body corporate levy and costs on time. Obviously, the money goes to the budget, which will run the whole building. If you don't pay it you're going to get penalised, but the big one is, you've got no vote. You have no say and you cannot actually complain or you can't do anything. Make sure you pay your body corporate levy.

Number two: Adhere to the body corporate rules. These are things like you are not allowed to be washing on the balcony or don't put washing on your balcony. Number two, if you're not allowed to paint your balcony, which in most cases is a definite no. You do not go and paint the balcony pink, because your owners are not going to be very happy.

Number three: Make sure your tenants and guests adhere to the body corporate rules also. Realise that if you are renting your apartment out, you are the person in the firing line. If your tenants are not adhering to the body corporate rules, you are going to be liable.  Make sure your tenants and your guests do.

Number four: Make sure your apartment does not affect the buildings of other apartments. What comes into this is, for example, structure. You cannot make modifications to your apartment that affect the structure of the overall building. Going back to what I said before, that is the reason why you cannot paint your deck pink. Because it is not going to make the whole building look very good. It affects the value of the building. There are other ways of looking at apartment complex and you got one balcony that is completely painted pink. The other ones are white and that is not going to look good.

Number five: Allow access to your unit, if the body corporate requires. This is an important one, because for example, a couple of times a year the body corporate has to do certain things like checks. Those checks have to be in place for you to get your insurance and your building insurance. Things like checking that all the fire alarms work, and you'll have ones in your unit or the sensors for example.

Number six: Informing body corporate of your contact details for any changes. If something happens they need to contact you. For example, if the pipes from the unit above start leaking and they are going into your tenants apartment. They will need to contact you immediately.

Number seven: Advise your body corporate of your change of ownership. Generally, your lawyers can do that, so that probably comes in when you sell your apartment.

Number eight: If renting your apartment, you need to give them your property manager's details. Now by law, if you have a contract for more than three weeks, you have to have a property manager. This is really important, because  you are paying your property manager a fee, or a percentage of the rent. The manager will look after your apartment. You do not want the body corporate ringing you if there is a problem with tenants. Make sure you give them your rental manager's details.

Number nine:  I'm just going to go out and actually, I have already mentioned it before. Just remember, pay your body corporate levy otherwise you have no vote at your AGM. It is like you are not even part of the body corporate. I know I repeated that one there, but it is obviously the most obvious one.

I hope that helps. Obviously, you can get more involved in your investment, your apartment if you want to. I would highly encourage you to do so. I'm on various committees of apartments I own. Which is obviously, going to the committee, get involved in the day-to-day operations. It's not that much work, but it's about putting time back in and you will get a lot out of it. When you are involved in how to enhance your own buildings value and improvements.

Now I hope that helps, Andrew Murray from Apartment Specialists and talk soon.

Cheers, bye.