Stratarama : What is Body Corporate? Your Questions Answered

Stratarama What is Body Corporate? Your Questions Answered

A Body Corporate is the general term used throughout Australia to encompass all forms of shared Titles. A Body Corporate is any Legal Corporate entity. This terminology is a general term to cover the various names used across all the different State legislations. In South Australia, our forms of Body Corporate properties are Strata or Community scheme. Strata is a term shared with some other States, however other Body Corporate names in other States include Owners Corporation

The term Body Corporate when discussing Strata or Community Title refers to a group of property Owners who collectively have part ownership in a Land division, on which each of those Owners also have private and exclusive use of a section, where a unit, townhouse, apartment or other unit/ Lot is established.

What does Body Corporate do?

Each body corporate will consist of either Commercial, Residential or mixed-use units/ lots. Depending on the body corporate, the site may also be tiered in terms of a primary, secondary type situation.

The body corporate, as mentioned above is the group of Strata or Community unit Owners whose role and responsibility are to ensure that the collective property is maintained, insured and safe for use by all Residents, Owners, Tenants and Visitors.

To fulfill these duties, the body corporate members must have regular meetings and determine the actions required to ensure both compliance and best practice for all members. To do this, many body corporate members may engage a body corporate manager (Strata Manager/ Community Title Manager) to assist them in the day to day running of the property group.

We said above that body corporate refers to being a legal corporate entity, as such there are obvious parallels between a body corporate property member and a board member of a Company. Both must ensure the safety, compliance and best practice for all within their body corporate, and effectively sit on a board to make these decisions. In fact, an older form of Strata Title here in South Australia, was actually Company Title units, showing this clear parallel. Several Company Title units’ properties still operate in SA today.

Who runs the Body Corporate?

As mentioned above, the Members of the body corporate run the body corporate. The Members are the unit owners and they may engage a Manager to assist them.

What Is The Difference Between A Body Corporate Manager And A Property Manager?

The body Corporate Manager or Strata Manager is engaged by the body corporate members to work with all members of the Corporation to deal with the matters mentioned above (common strata insurance, building maintenance, the raising of funds for ongoing works, compliance and all matters that are common). With-in each of these lots or Strata units either a body corporate member resides, or leases out their unit (residentially or commercially). When that unit is leased, the Owner of the unit (the same as they might with a Torrens Titled home) may choose to employ a property Manager to collect the rents, run checks on the Tenants to ensure compliance of their lease agreements, find suitable tenants and the like. The property Manager will address matters purely based on behalf of that one unit owner engaging them. Having a great Property Manager and great Body Corporate Manager who are able to communicate to one another effectively may reduce the work and issues faced by the individual unit Owner.

The above article will explain things in regards to a body corporate which is a Strata Title in South Australia, such as:

How are body Corporate fees Calculated? And what do they cover?
Why are Body Corporate Fees high?
What happens if I don’t pay my Body Corporate Fees?
How can I reduce my Body Corporate Fees?
What is included in my Body Corporate Fees?
Why are Body Corporates important?
Can we self-manage our Body Corporate? / Can we do our own Body Corporate management?

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