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.
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.
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.
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!
BellyBelly Member
body corp and rates?
. It's a lot of work!
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