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Other Parliamentary SpeechesThis page is dedicated to Peter's speeches during parliament that do not fall under Questions or Questions without notice. They range from debating legislation, reporting on events or issues in his seat of Southport and his Ministerial Statements.
Body Corporate and Community Management and Other Legislation Amendment Bill |
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| Posted by Administrator (admin) on Feb 27 2003 |
| Other Speeches >> |
Mr LAWLOR (Southport-ALP) (4.42 p.m.): I rise to support the Body Corporate and Community Management and Other Legislation Amendment Bill. I will confine my comments to just one aspect of the bill, and that relates to statutory easements. Many other aspects of the bill have been or will be dealt with by other speakers. The act presently creates a number of different statutory easements for particular purposes. These easements exist without the need to create easement documents and to register these in the freehold land register. The act provides for the particular application of statutory easements where the lots are created by particular plan formats under the Land Title Act. Importantly, a building must exist before the easements must come into force. Bare land subdivided into scheme land does not have the benefit of the easements. In that case, normal easements under the Land Title Act 1994 must be put in place. The intention is to prevent deliberate application of the rights under the easements attaching to the lots where no building exists.
An anomaly exists for schemes previously created under the Building Units and Group Titles Act 1980. Those schemes had the benefit of the easements under that act. However, those schemes now come under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 and any subsequent development of standard format lots does not have the benefit of the easements. Sections 59 to 65 of the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 about statutory easements have been relocated to the Land Title Act 1994 as easements are interests in land, and that is clause 26. The current provisions creating statutory easements for support and services in community titles schemes are to be extended so that they apply to standard format lots in addition to building format lots. Standard format lots contain land and a building, while building format lots are part of a building bounded by a floor, walls and ceiling. There will also be additional types of statutory easements for building projections and access for maintenance.
A sketch plan is to be included in the community management statement showing the locations of services that are the subject of a statutory easement other than those in buildings. An amendment-that is, clause 27 amending section 67A-introduces the new concept of the service location diagram. This diagram is an information tool for owners and persons buying into the scheme. It will show in general terms the location of service easements for utility services-that is, water, power, phone, sewerage and the like-on standard format lots in the scheme land. The services might run under the access roads or along the boundaries between lots in the scheme. The diagrams are not used for high-rise buildings because of the complexity of showing such services that are usually located in a confined space in the building. As new service easements are included in the scheme land, the body corporate is required to update the diagrams and the community management statement. I congratulate the minister and his staff on this important bill, which I commend to the House. Last changed: [PUBLISHED_DATE] at 11:00 PM
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