Tips when buying a sectional title property
Category Property Investment
Before rushing into making an offer on your dream apartment (sectional title unit), make sure you check the financials of the Body Corporate. It is important to determine the financial standing and that it is not in the red and has available funds to deal with anything unexpected that may come up.
The Body Corporate Rules should also be requested to ascertain that there are no unreasonable rules in the block and none that may be detrimental to you as owner or as landlord with a tenant.
Importantly if you are considering short term rentals or have pets, the Body Corporate Rules will confirm what is and what isn't allowed.
Get confirmation in writing of what your monthly levy amount is and exactly what it covers.
Request a copy of the latest levy statement as well as the rates.
You can then also take this levy amount and use it to compare against levies in other buildings to determine if it is much higher or lower then average.
If the sectional title unit comes with a parking bay, its important to understand the difference between an 'exclusive use' parking bay and one with its own title deed.
Basically the difference is that you cannot sell an exclusive use area off separately to the unit, only the parking with a separate title deed can be sold separately.
Its also important to understand that in a sectional title development there will be areas zoned as 'common areas' and these are areas shared by all owners in the sectional title development eg passageways, gardens, lifts etc.
Lastly, if you are really serious about buying and are going to be living in the apartment, it might be advisable to check if there are any short term rental agents that operate in the block so that you can rent a unit for a weekend and get a true sense of what its like to live there
Author: Cesar Alexandre
