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.

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.

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

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.

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?