What does Stratum with freehold, and Stratum with Leasehold means in terms of this Strata title?

What we can do and cannot do once we get the strata?

This post has been edited by PhoebeTeh: Nov 1 2010, 05:26 PM

i dont know much.

but i know freehold means no limit in terms of years whereas the leasehold has period (usually, but not necessarily 99 years). upon this period, we need to reapply for extension to land office and need pay $$$.

pls google lar sikit....
after that not sure, then clarify with our forumers mar....

I not only googled, i also search forums, answer.com...

I was asking what is "Stratum with freehold" = Especially for Town Villa. Not the freehold and leasehold.

Thanks.

Regards
Phoebe

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Added on November 1, 2010, 5:27 pmThanks. I am asking specifically to "Strata title with Freehold", normally for Town Villa.

Regards
Phoebe

This post has been edited by PhoebeTeh: Nov 1 2010, 05:27 PM

hmm.... strata title also have freehold and leasehold.

there's no difference of strata title between town villa and apartment.

Freehold means the property is yours. Leasehold means you have temporary ownership of the property/land so if you see condominiums with 99 year leasehold means that that in 99 years time it'll be owned by someone else. Nothing wrong with buying leasehold as long as reflected in the price which is only crucial when leasehold period is up. For example buildings with 30 years left - if you intend to keep it in the family then you'd probably not buy it.

Strata title means titles are issued for each individual floor rather than just the owner of the land.

Put the two together and you get either freehold strata or leasehold.

Freehold property is a property ownership of land and the buildings on such land (as opposed to leasehold where property reverts to the owner when the lease expires). According to national land code of Malaysia 1964, you own the land as long as you pay the Quit Rent and Assessment on time. Otherwise the state has the right to take back the land.

Leasehold property as explained above, the property reverts to the owner when the lease expires. If you have a freehold property, you could lease it to others. In this case, the leaseholder is buying/leasing the land from you, the freeholder. If I'm not wrong for land subject to National Land Code, the minimum years of a lease is 3 years while the maximum years of a lease is 99 years.

Strata title is a form a co-ownership of a land, it could be leasehold or freehold. For explanation, imagine a plot of land with 3 bungalows, a big playground and an access road. 3 persons would like to buy this land and maintain the original layout of the land(note that if they were to subdivide the land, the individual land owner might disturb the original layout of the land). Therefore the best way is to apply for strata title, 3 of the buyers have their own house and in the same time, they co-own the road, playground and etc. Now, image that these 3 bungalows are demolished and replaced with 3 high rise buildings with podium and the playground has been shifted to podium roof. Now the same piece of land has thousands of units and in the same manner, the individual owner could have their own units and co-own the rest of the areas.

Now by having so many owners owning the same piece of land, it is very obvious what you can do and cannot do. What you can do is obviously modification whatever within your specified limit/compound. Even the modification could be subjected to lots of HOUSE RULES so that the original development of the land is maintained and kept. For the common areas, obviously you could not touch it but meeting could be set up between the owners and have your ideas transmitted or heard accordingly. If everybody agrees, even an extra block of building is possible(subject to authority approval this time).

By having the above explanation, I also welcome if there is any comment to make the explanation even more perfect and point out my errors.

This post has been edited by GangHo: Nov 1 2010, 05:51 PM

Strata literally means different levels so houses three bungalows would mean three separate titles for each of the bungalows and a separate title for the shared land in which all three are joint owners.

As for condos, your title is only your unit and apparently nowadays carpark space as well and you do not actually co-own the rest of the areas. It's not like they include 1/132th of the playground in your land assessment right? I could be wrong but as far as I know, I paid for my unit and title in my name for that unit and the rest are the facilities which I have a right to use; since you'd pay a maintenance/service fee right but legally do not own nor am I personally responsible/liable for.

freehold and leasehold, self explanatory.

landtitle - land owner title
strata title - title for land owner in the sky (condo)

Start title act 1985(Act 318) uses the word 'co-proprietor' instead of 'co-owner'

The example of bungalows quoted is actually real example in the country of Australia. And Malaysia actually adopted the idea of 'strata title' from Australia, the originator of 'strata title'. With the complexity of real property, nowadays, the idea of 'strata title' is no more limited to the high rise development.

In Malaysia, residents of high rise residential buildings could now opt not to engage and pay their own management company to manage the whole property. This is actually a manifestation of property rights over land. The resident may even change the usage of certain portion of the building subjected to authority approval.

excerpt from the Act


Upon the opening of a book of the strata register in respect of a subdivided building there shall, by the operation of the section, come into existence a management corporation consisting of all the parcel proprietors
[I][

Note: Highlighted statement above implies that individual units owners are the owner of the whole development.


The management corporation shall elect a council which subject to any restriction imposed or direction given by the management corporation at a general meeting, shall perform the management corporation's duties and conduct the management corporation's business on its behalf, and may for that purpose exercise any of the management corporation's powers.


The management corporation shall, on coming into existence become the proprietor of the common property and be the custodian of the issue document of title of the lot.


The management corporation shall have in relation to the common property the powers conferred by the National Land Code on a proprietor in relation to his land:

Provided that -

(i) except where it is specifically provided otherwise in this Act, those powers may be exercised only on the authority of a unanimous resolutions; and

(ii) the corporation shall not have power to transfer any portion of the common property which forms part of the building or the land on which the building stands.


And if you were to look at the duties of the management corporation -- it's all set up to serve the individual unit owner.

We do pay assessment but in the form of maintenance fees.

I don't get it. You've pasted an excerpt from the Act, but no mention of any section etc. You can't just paste parts of an Act.

Could you please explain more? Because you've skipped a lot and jumped to the middle of the Act. I'm not a lawyer so I couldn't just look at the Act and know what it does and does not imply.

Thanks!

p.s: when I said strata I meant in literal terms how the word came about as banks coming from banca and credit from credo.

This post has been edited by [PIMPIN]: Nov 1 2010, 09:31 PM

Short words, most likely Strata title with FREEhold= FREEHOLD CONDO / Apartment...

Strata title is an individual title for a unit (parcel) in a building, eg condos, apartments.

Freehold means that the ownership belongs to you in perpetuity, while leasehold would mean that it belongs to you for a stipulated period of years, mostly 99 years from date of issuance. After that period, it ought to revert to the state authority, but in reality, it will most probably be extended for another 99 years.

What can you do with the title? Keep it safely of course!

Hope the above helps

strata with freehold = value

My apology, please refer to the following link for further info:-

http://www.hba.org.my/laws/Strata/Main/PART_VII.htm#42. Ownership of common property and custody of issue document of title.

Ok, from what I gather and this is my understanding having read the Act. Whenever the owner of a land applies to have his land subdivided into strata titles, after being granted approval the owner will immediately be listed by the Registrar in the Strata Title Register whereby information of the various lots and their sizes are detailed with the leftover space still being held under the owner of the land which up until this point would be the developer.

Immediately the owner has to form a management corporation that means at the point whereby the approval to subdivide is granted and that management corporation must be a separate entity to which the ownership of the common areas is transferred to. This entity as you've posted earlier must be able to sue and liable to be sued. So this management corporation would be responsible for providing whatever facilities, services as promised and they will have set certain guidelines which would have been already listed in the SPA.

For example, my development we cannot renovate our houses which we hold 100% freehold outside standards set by the management corporation. This includes extensions etc which cannot vary in terms of external paint and all renovations must be approved by the management corporation before commencement. Now although mine isn't strata yet gated community, this highlights the power of the management corporation as at the point where 100% of units are sold and SPAs are signed that means there is UNANIMOUS agreement among all owners to obey the laws and regulations set by the management corporation.

The reason why the management corporation cannot be owned collectively by the residents is because should there be any negligence in construction for example or maintenance, the management corporation can be sued by the resident in return for damages. Another reason is that your assessment is calculated based on the size of your property and some management corporations include your parking space in the assessment to reduce their own common land holdings (why should they be responsible for the carpark) and subsequently assessment. Furthermore, should the management corporation be found to be at fault and is liable to compensate strata title owners for an amount greater than its assets than it will declare bankruptcy upon which the next step is to establish the link back to the original owner/developer which is why the management corporation would be usually formed by the developer from Day 1 the moment the strata titles are approved and subdivided but has not been owned purchased by individual home buyers.

The management/service fee is paid by you to the management corporation in return for provision of services and maintenance of services and sinking funds which is used by management corporation to repay their borrowings which they would have had to incur in order to retain ownership of the common areas. The residents do have input into how the management goes about managing the common areas but in order to remove the management corporation, it would again require a UNANIMOUS decision by all the strata title owners to remove the management corporation and assume its ownership of the common property. At this point the shareholding % of each owner is calculated based on the size of their respective properties.

Again, I'm not a lawyer but this is what I believe to be the case as I own properties both strata and landed in which the role and responsibilities of the management corporation were made clear when I signed the SPA and I know that I do not own any part of the common areas and I don't even choose to participate in the residents association which is a collective formed to represent the interests of the residents when dealing with the management corporation.

I could get proper legal interpretation if you're interested as I do have lawyers with whom I meet on a weekly basis and since they are retained as counsel for me and some of my family members it costs nothing for me to ask but they aren't property lawyers or do much conveyancing as opposed to ligation. Or you could ask any lawyers you know or you could even be a lawyer yourself in which case how close am I? Hahahah

All in fun, spirit of sharing info and hopefully learning something new everyday.

Dear Pimpin,

Firstly, in the act the developer is referred to as original proprietor(singular) while the buyer of the individual lot is referred to as proprietors/parcels proprietors(plural). It is the duty of the original proprietor(developer) to take care of the common areas and other related function of the buildings before MC is formed. If we were to read the act carefully, we will know who should be the one apply to court for the forming of MC.

Secondly, MC is not owned but appointed. MC is the medium which the proprietors control and manage the strata scheme pursuant to the strata titles act 1985 and the rules made thereunder. If you own lots of properties, you could employ a property management company to manage all your properties and sue this company if this company fails to perform its duties. And It's only correct that MC is granted the rights to impose certain rules and regulation for the goodness of properties.

Thirdly, as what you have pointed out clearly MC could be sued. If the parcels proprietors does not have any interest or rights over the common areas, where is the rights to sue?

In most of the cases in a condominium, the common areas is but areas(generator room, corridors, swimming pools, gym & etc.) that could not generate any income and its very little commercial value to whoever that is owning it unless those people that needs it due to the daily operation of the building.

MC is also the custodian of the issue of the document of title of the relevant land; Custodian that liable to who? All the individual unit owners of the building.

It is interesting that we go this far. Perhaps you could check your lawyer friends if all the individual unit owners could demolish the building and redevelop the land if the government approves the building plan?

Actually, I don't know how we've swerved into the legal aspect of strata titles but it's great that you've taken the time to read and take into consideration my point of view as its a layman's point of view. I don't actually have any lawyer friends; it's a professional relationship and basically they draft whatever agreements, company formation, SPA, tenancy agreements, will, etc. I don't actually discuss the law with them but I can definitely ask.

You sound like someone well versed in the law; do you practice?