Introduction to the Unit Titles Act 2010
What is a unit title?
Unit titles are the most widely used form of multi-unit property ownership. New Zealand has over 18,000 unit title developments. 12,650 of these are residential developments, comprising more than 90,000 units. Unit title developments are typically apartment blocks, units, townhouses, office blocks and industrial or retail complexes.
In a unit title development, owners own a defined part of the building, such as an apartment or unit, and may also have shared ownership in common areas such as lifts, lobbies or driveways. Collectively, all the unit owners in a unit title development make up the body corporate. The body corporate is responsible for a range of management, financial and administrative matters relating to the common property and to the building as a whole.
Unit Titles Act 2010
The Unit Titles Act 2010 was enacted on 1 April 2010 and improves on the 1972 Act in a number of ways, including:
- clarifying the definition of a principal unit
- streamlining the process under which a development is built in stages
- creating a more flexible system for calculating how much a unit owner should contribute to body corporate funds
- stating that the body corporate owns the common property
- clarifying the rights and responsibilities of unit owners and bodies corporate
- creating more efficient and transparent governance and management structures
- lowering the voting threshold for most body corporate decisions
- providing a comprehensive disclosure regime for buyers and sellers, developers, and bodies corporate
- providing a fully integrated and cost effective dispute resolution service through the Tenancy Tribunal.
Regulations
You can find the regulations supporting the Unit Titles Act on the Legislation New Zealand website:
More about the Unit Titles Act
Read more about what you need to do as a body corporate or unit title owner, in the links below: