body corp and rates?

we are looking to buy something cheapish, we are thinking of a townhouse or a villa. just wondering though do these involved BOTH body corp fees and rates? if so, are they in the long run dearer than a house?

Yep we pay both b/corp (400 a quarter) and rates (400 a quarter). It really depends on how expensive your b/corp is, and things like pools, electric gates and elevators really jack the price up.

Remember that b/corp pays for some of the insurance that you would have to get if you owned a house, also, they pay to maintain the outside of the dwelling and the property.

Unit rates are cheaper than house rates though.

I don't know how it really works out in the end, but we love our unit.

HTH!

Hollo it really depends on the price of the body corp fees as to whether they work out cheaper than a house..

Some body corp fees are really really cheap per quarter - and some are ridiculously high.

But I pay $2,000 a year for rates on my house - so cheaper than what Oscar has to pay per year on hers both together.

Mel our land value is insane, something like $1.2 million! I think thats why we pay so much in rates, because it is partially based on the land value that the units sit on.

thanks, so it is something i would have to talk to the real estate agent about? or do you speak to the body corp themselves? i have no idea about this really :-) there is a townhouse we are going to look at and the body corp is 2000 a year but there are 4 pools and a tennis court in there, so i assume that it would be bigger fee than the usual smaller complex?

Hollo - I'm glad you are in Queensland - I hate it when I give advice that might be wrong in other states.

When you sign the contract - or look at the contract - they will have included a body corporate disclosure statement annexed to the contract. That should outlay all the fees - sometimes the agent isn't aware of them - and you USUALLY are recommended to do a body corporate records inspection search in your conveyancing. I recommend it to all my clients when I do conveyancing (I'm in litigation at the moment)

So if they don't put it on the disclosure notice - nothing stopping you asking the agent what they are. They may be willing to shell out for a body corporate information certificate (different than the search - this costs $49.00 - search costs $200 usually) and the certificate will tell you how much everything is, when the periods are etc, lot entitlement etc - so you can see your percentage as opposed to the other units etc - but the search will go into finer details and tell you where the money in the sinking fund is going.

HTH.

thanks arimeh, oh it is all so very confusing. LOL more comlicated than i first thought it would be!

If you have any questions - just ask. I'm pretty up to date with my knowledge (even though they change legislation and rules all the time) i last did conveyancing in November.

We live in a unit and we pay body corp and council rates. It would really depend on whether you have a body corp or not, as some townhouses dont have it.

Usually, BodyCorp insures the Building and I think for us they also insure the fixtures and fittings, but we are responsible for insuring our contents. When we were having all the conveyancing done, we got the strata/body corp report and it showed us information about the levies, what was in the sinking fund at the time and a few other things. We pay $450/quarter for body corp and $180/quarter for council rates. There are some units in my building that have larger garages/balconies or the unit is just bigger and those people pay a higher body corp levy. For a house, you'd have to pay more in council rates than you would for a villa//townhouse.

I think the 4 pools would make it overall more expensive to run, hence higher BC fees. Although to be honest 500 a quarter isnt that bad!

I am the BC chairman for our complex :doh:. It's a lot of work!

so the BC covers insurance of the building? so you wouldnt need to get home insurance just contents insurance?

Yep that's right. They usually have public liability insurance as well. HTH!

Yeah our BC insures the actual building, the common property, and has public liability of I think $30 mil. We just get contents insurance for all our stuff.
We've had to have a couple of repairs done and our BC has covered it for us - this was for stuff like upstairs pipes bursting and causing damage to our ceiling.
For $500 a quarter with stuff like pools, I think thats very reasonable. We pay about that too, and we have no pools!