Strata plan registration is the moment one title becomes a set of lots that can be sold and settled separately. Before it, there is nothing to transfer: no lot, no common property, no owners corporation or body corporate, and no folio for a purchaser’s solicitor to call for. After it, each lot has its own folio in the register, the entity that will run the building exists, and settlements can start. For a developer the practical point is that registration is a gate, not an administrative tidy-up, and almost every input to it is held by somebody else. The surveyor draws the plan. A council, a certifier or a territory authority signs off that the building matches what was approved. A valuer fixes the numbers that will drive levies for the life of the scheme. Mortgagees and caveators consent. The registrar checks the lot.
Before considering how strata plan registration affects a project, you’ll need professional advice from a property lawyer, and the plan itself can only be prepared by a licensed or registered surveyor. The lawyer is worth involving before the off-the-plan contracts are drafted rather than after, because the contract’s settlement machinery and any sunset date have to work against a registration timetable nobody fully controls. The surveyor and the valuer matter before the entitlement schedule is settled, because in several jurisdictions a certificate they give has an expiry on it and a lapsed certificate sends the plan backwards in the queue. The consequences of getting this wrong land on the developer rather than on the consultants: settlements that cannot be called, interest running on a facility past the date the feasibility assumed it would be repaid, purchasers with a right to delay or walk, and in some cases an entitlement schedule that cannot be changed later without a unanimous resolution of the very owners it disadvantages. This guide is written to make the conversation with those advisers shorter and better aimed. It does not answer it, and the section near the end sets out the questions that are genuinely theirs.
Figures, section numbers, forms and lodgement rules in this guide were current at the date of writing and move. Several of the electronic lodgement mandates referred to below commenced in 2024, and the registries revise their published procedure guides several times a year. Each section links the legislation or the registry’s own page, and that source is where to confirm a number or a deadline before it goes into a contract or a programme.
What does strata plan registration actually achieve?
Registration creates the lots, the common property and the entity that manages them, in one step. The mechanism is the same idea everywhere, with different names bolted on.
In New South Wales, land including the whole of a building, or part only of a building, may be subdivided into lots, or lots and common property, by the registration of a plan as a strata plan under section 9 of the Strata Schemes Development Act 2015 (NSW). The same section limits what land qualifies: land under the Real Property Act 1900 held in fee simple, other than land comprised in a limited folio or qualified folio, and a development lot in an existing strata plan cannot be subdivided this way at all.
Tasmania states the consequence in the plainest terms. Under section 8 of the Strata Titles Act 1998 (Tas), a registered strata plan forms part of the register, and on registration the Recorder must create folios for each of the lots created by the plan and for the common property. The folios for the lots issue in the name of the original proprietor and the folio for the common property issues in the name of the body corporate. The Act also provides that the Recorder may issue certificates of title for the lots, but that no certificate of title is to be issued for the common property.
New Zealand frames it as a subdivision effected by deposit. Section 17 of the Unit Titles Act 2010 provides that the subdivision of land to provide for units is effected by the deposit, under the Land Transfer Act 2017, of a plan specifying the units in their relation to a building or buildings already erected on the land. Section 18 then says the deposit of a unit plan creates in each principal unit and each accessory unit a stratum estate, which carries both the estate in the unit itself and the beneficial interest in the common property.
Queensland is the outlier worth knowing about, because the plan is not the thing that establishes the scheme. Section 24 of the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (Qld) provides that a community titles scheme is established by, firstly, the registration under the Land Title Act of a plan of subdivision identifying the scheme land, and secondly, the recording by the registrar of the first community management statement. The section then fixes the moment: “A community titles scheme is established when the first community management statement for the scheme is recorded.” A registered plan with no recorded statement is a subdivision without a scheme.
Western Australia takes the opposite approach and insists everything lands together. Landgate’s published procedure guide STR-02 states that a freehold scheme can only be registered when the scheme documents are registered, being the scheme notice, the scheme plan, the schedule of unit entitlements and any scheme by-laws, and that registration “will only be achieved when all Scheme Documents are registered simultaneously with the Application to register strata titles scheme”. A leasehold scheme adds the strata lease to that bundle.
Victoria runs the step through a plan of subdivision rather than a separate strata instrument. Land Services Victoria notes that all new plans of subdivision are lodged under the Subdivision Act 1988, and that as part of the subdivision process a plan may create easements, owners corporations and restrictions. The mechanics of the Victorian subdivision process itself are covered in more depth in the Victorian subdivision guide.
What has to be in the plan before a registrar will accept it?
The content requirements are prescriptive and jurisdiction-specific, and they are a common source of requisitions.
New South Wales sets a short list with long consequences. Under section 10(1) of the Strata Schemes Development Act 2015 (NSW), a plan intended to be registered as a strata plan must include a location plan, a floor plan and an administration sheet, and must specify or be accompanied by proposed by-laws. If model by-laws are proposed, the plan specifies which model by-laws are adopted and, where the model by-laws include alternative versions, which version. If by-laws other than model by-laws are proposed, they must accompany the plan in the approved form, signed by the persons required to sign the plan under section 22(1). Two further limbs catch staged and mixed-use projects: a plan intended to create a development lot must be accompanied by the strata development contract and the planning authority’s certificate given under section 75(2) unless the plan is lodged by the Crown, and a plan intended to create a part strata parcel must be accompanied by a strata management statement unless that requirement is waived under section 99(2). The plan must also indicate whether it is intended to create a freehold or a leasehold strata scheme.
Tasmania’s section 5 is a useful checklist for any jurisdiction. A strata plan must state the name of the strata scheme, delineate the external surface boundaries of the site and the location of the buildings in relation to those boundaries, state the title reference and other particulars of the site’s location, include a drawing illustrating the lots and distinguishing them by numbers or other symbols, define the boundaries of each lot, show the approximate area of each lot, state the unit entitlement of each lot, and state the name of the body corporate to be formed on registration and its address for service. Section 5(4) adds a point that matters where a building is close to a boundary: the plan must be endorsed with a certificate of a registered surveyor certifying that the buildings shown on the plan are within the boundaries of the site, or that any encroachment beyond those boundaries is properly authorised according to law. Section 5(3) supplies a default that can surprise people reading a plan later, in that where a lot is separated from another lot or from common property by a boundary structure, the boundary is the centre of that structure unless the plan stipulates otherwise.
Encroachment is handled separately again in New South Wales, and the drafting is worth noting because the two certifying routes differ. Under section 62, where a building to which the plan relates encroaches on a public place, a local council may refuse to issue a strata certificate unless the plan clearly indicates the existence, nature and extent of the encroachment and the council is satisfied that retention of the encroachment in its existing state will not endanger public safety or unreasonably interfere with the amenity of the neighbourhood. A registered certifier, by contrast, must refuse in the same circumstances. The trap is that an encroachment discovered at plan stage is not necessarily fatal, but an encroachment not shown on the plan generally is.
In Victoria, Regulation 8 of the Subdivision (Registrar’s Requirements) Regulations 2011 sets out the information that must appear on plans of subdivision lodged at Land Services Victoria, and a plan creating one or more owners corporations must also be accompanied by an Owners Corporation Additional Information document for each new owners corporation, setting out matters including its postal address and how the lot entitlements and liabilities were allocated. From 31 July 2023 that document is supplied by the licensed surveyor where an owners corporation spreadsheet has been uploaded in the Surveying and Planning through Electronic Applications and Referrals system (SPEAR), rather than by the lodging party.
New Zealand attaches a survey gate. Section 32(2)(c) of the Unit Titles Act 2010 provides that a unit plan for the subdivision of land or of a principal unit must not be deposited until it has been approved in accordance with section 9 of the Cadastral Survey Act 2002.
Who has to sign or consent before a plan can register?
Consent is where a plan that looks finished stalls, because the people whose signatures are needed have no particular reason to hurry.
Section 22(1) of the Strata Schemes Development Act 2015 (NSW) provides that the Registrar-General must not register a plan as a strata plan unless it is signed by the registered proprietor of the land comprised in the plan, by each registered mortgagee, chargee or covenant chargee of the land, and, for a leasehold strata scheme, by each lessee under a registered lease of the land or part of it and each registered mortgagee or chargee under a mortgage of, or charge affecting, such a lease. Section 22(3) then gives the Registrar-General a discretion to refuse registration unless written consent is lodged, signed by whichever of the following the Registrar-General considers appropriate: the judgment creditor under any writ recorded in a folio for the land, the caveator under a caveat affecting any estate or interest in the land, and the registered lessee of the land. A caveat lodged for an unrelated commercial dispute is therefore capable of holding a settlement programme, which is one reason caveats repay attention well before the plan is lodged. The broader mechanics are covered in the guide to caveats on property title.
New Zealand puts the same requirement in mandatory form. Section 32(1)(d) of the Unit Titles Act 2010 provides that a unit plan must not be deposited unless the grantor of the lease or licence, if the land is held under a lease or licence, the registered owner of any mortgage, encumbrance or charge affecting the land or any part of it, and every caveator whose caveat against the land was lodged with the Registrar before deposit of the plan, have consented in writing to its being deposited. Section 32(1) also carries a set of title-condition bars: a unit plan must not be deposited while the record of title is limited or qualified, while the land is held in more than one record of title, or unless the land to which it relates is the whole of the land in a record of title.
Western Australia requires written consent to the subdivision and the schedule of unit entitlements from all designated interest holders, and Landgate’s guide points to section 34(b) of the Strata Titles Act 1985 (WA) for the form that consent takes, noting it is usually a letter from the interest holder to the Registrar of Titles. The guide also records who signs the application itself: the land description used should be that shown on the title for the original land parcel, and the scheme developer, meaning all the owners of the original parcel where there is more than one, must sign.
Tasmania handles one specific consent problem by refusing to carry it forward. Section 7(2) provides that where, before registration of the strata plan, one part of the site is subject to one mortgage and another part is subject to another mortgage, the Recorder must not accept the plan for registration unless all mortgages, or all but one of them, are discharged. Where a single mortgage remains, it extends to the whole of the site and is registered on the folio for each lot created, though not on the folio for the common property. A site assembled in parcels under separate finance therefore needs the debt consolidated or discharged before the plan can go in.
Which approval sits between the building and the registry?
Every jurisdiction puts an independent check between the completed building and the register, and each one is a different animal.
New South Wales uses a strata certificate. Under section 53, an application may be made only by the registered proprietor of the land, or by another person with the proprietor’s written consent. Either a local council or a registered certifier may issue it, under Divisions 2 and 3 respectively. Section 54(1) sets out when a local council must issue a certificate for a proposed strata plan that does not include a development lot. Where the land is within a water supply authority’s area of operations, that authority must have issued a certificate of compliance for the proposed subdivision. Beyond that, one of two alternative sets of requirements has to be satisfied. The first is construction-based: a construction certificate has been issued under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 in relation to the erection of each building containing a proposed lot; each proposed lot substantially corresponds with a part of any such building shown in the building plans accompanying the construction certificate and is designated in those plans as intended for separate occupation; and each such building was completed not more than 12 months, or a longer period fixed by the local council in any particular case, before the application for the strata certificate was made. The second set is planning-based and applies where the construction route does not fit, turning on whether separate occupation would contravene the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 or an environmental planning instrument, whether any required consent has been given, whether the council is satisfied the subdivision will not interfere with the existing or likely future amenity of the neighbourhood, and whether the land is the subject of an outstanding order, requirement or notice.
That 12-month window in section 54(1)(b)(iii) is the detail most likely to bite a stalled project. A building completed and then left while a dispute, a funding problem or a defect rectification runs on can fall outside it, and the alternative is a longer period fixed by the council in the particular case rather than an automatic extension.
Section 57 constrains councils further. A local council must not issue a strata certificate unless it complies with the regulations relating to the issue of strata certificates by a local council and is satisfied that any inspections prescribed by the regulations have been carried out. Where a relevant planning approval is not in force or is not required, the council must also have considered whether the structural strength and load-bearing capacity of the building, the measures to protect persons using the building and to facilitate their egress in the event of fire, and the measures to restrict the spread of fire to other buildings nearby will be appropriate to the proposed use, and whether the building complies, or will comply when completed, with the Category 1 fire safety provisions applicable to the building’s proposed use. Section 61 imposes the parallel restriction on registered certifiers, who must not issue a strata certificate unless they comply with the regulations and are satisfied that prescribed inspections have been carried out. Where the two routes differ in practice is in the amenity and outstanding-order limbs, which sit with councils.
Tasmania uses a council certificate of approval. Section 6(1A) provides that a strata plan lodged with the Recorder must be endorsed with a certificate of approval issued by the council for the area in which the site is situated, and section 6(2) requires the plan to be accompanied by any certificates of title for the site, any other documents the Recorder requires, and the prescribed fee. Section 6(3) then obliges the Recorder to register the plan where satisfied that the requirements for registration have been complied with. The Australian Capital Territory uses a licensed assessor and a report. The Territory’s published guide to the unit title application process describes a sequence that starts well before the registry. The applicant, which may be the lessee, the developer or their solicitor, engages a licensed unit title assessor to prepare a Unit Title Assessment Report, as required under the Unit Titles Act 2001. The assessor is given land and applicant details, the unit type including whether it is Class A or Class B and staged or unstaged, start and finish dates, the development approval reference and a signed request. The report covers a site inspection with proof it occurred after construction for each stage, unit entitlements, certificates, and photographs of signs and letterboxes; a development approval check that all conditions are met, that plans match the approval, that landscaping matches the approved plan and that any encroachments are allowed; and a plans check covering structures against approved plans, an addressing diagram from the City and Environment Directorate, building footprints and access to common property. The materials accompanying it include certificates for occupancy and use, for unit entitlement and for fitness for unit title, and surveyor encroachment certification.
Two age limits apply and they are short. Documents such as site plans must be less than three months old when the report is finished, and the report itself must be less than three months old. The application is then lodged with the Unit Title Assessment Report, the units plan and the units plan surveyor’s checklist as separate documents, and the directorate checks minimum requirements, confirms the proposal fits the lease purpose clause or that the lease has less than 50 years left, assesses the report and examines the plan. A certificate of compliance is required for the application. The territory planning authority may approve the application if it meets section 20 of the Unit Titles Act 2001, after which the units plan goes to the lessee to sign and comes back for endorsement under section 27 before the applicant is told the plan is ready to register at the Land Titles Office.
The Territory also notes a reform that eases sequencing: the application may be lodged without the most recent certificate of occupancy and use for each unit and any structures on common property, and without a Public Unleased Land Act 2013 works approval where one is required, provided those are supplied later as further information before approval is granted.
One further Australian Capital Territory requirement is easy to miss on a programme because it is a revenue step rather than a planning one. Before lodgement, the units plan must carry a certificate from the Commissioner for Revenue confirming no unpaid rates under the Rates Act 2004 for the financial year, and no unpaid land tax under the Land Tax Act 2004 for the quarter in which the plan will be registered. A building management statement is also needed for all new multi-lease buildings that have at least one units plan, under Part 11A of the Land Titles Act 1925.
New Zealand uses a territorial authority certificate. Section 32(2)(a) of the Unit Titles Act 2010 provides that a unit plan must not be deposited unless a certificate in the prescribed form has been given in writing by an authorised officer of the territorial authority in whose district the land is situated, to the effect that every building shown on the plan has been erected, and all other development work carried out, to the extent necessary to enable all the boundaries of every unit and the common property shown on the plan to be physically measured, and that every principal unit shown on the plan conforms to the definition of principal unit in section 7. Section 36 gives that certificate finality of a sort, in that a territorial authority cannot require alterations once the certificate is given.
Western Australia uses plan examination and, where required, the Western Australian Planning Commission. Landgate’s guide sets out the status progression a lodged plan moves through: Subject to Examination when the surveyor lodges electronically with a pre-allocated plan number and the prescribed fees; Examined once it has been checked against the various Acts and Regulations, which occurs only when all forms are lodged with the plan; Examined and Sent to WAPC, the Western Australian Planning Commission, where its approval is required; and In Order for Dealings when the plan returns approved, or immediately after examination where no such approval is required. The guide notes that the scheme developer may apply to register at any time, but that the scheme can only be registered when the plan status shows In Order for Dealings, and that the plan itself will note specific pre-requisites, which may include amalgamating lots to form the strata land parcel, or modifying or removing a restrictive covenant that would otherwise prevent multiple dwellings or subdivision by a strata titles scheme.
Victoria routes it through electronic lodgement. Land Services Victoria records that lodging parties subscribing to the SPEAR Electronic Lodgment Network have had to lodge plans of subdivision through it from 4 March 2024, and that from 29 April 2024 all plans of subdivision lodged by a represented party must be lodged that way. Under the Registrar’s requirements for paper conveyancing, all plans first signed by the surveyor on or after 1 January 2020 must be submitted in SPEAR. Only a licensed surveyor can prepare the plan, and the registry’s own guidance recommends that a conveyancer or lawyer lodge it.
When is the owners corporation or body corporate actually created?
The owners corporation or body corporate is created by the registration or deposit itself, not by a later meeting, and that has a practical consequence: the entity exists, owns or holds the common property, and starts incurring obligations from day one, usually while the developer still owns every lot.
Queensland links creation to establishment of the scheme. Section 30 of the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (Qld) provides that when a community titles scheme is established, a body corporate is created and is the body corporate for the scheme. Since section 24 fixes establishment at the recording of the first community management statement, that statement is the operative document, and section 53 requires it to be signed by the person who, on establishment of the scheme, becomes the original owner. Section 31 makes the members of the body corporate the owners of all lots included in the scheme, and section 32 provides that the Corporations Act does not apply to it.
The first community management statement also deserves care because of how hard it is to change. Section 54 provides that the existing statement cannot be amended, and that a new community management statement may be recorded in its place only if the body corporate consents under section 62 and endorses its consent on the new statement. The statement a developer records at the outset is therefore the one the scheme lives with until the owners agree otherwise.
Tasmania names the entity on the spot. Section 71(1) provides that on registration of a strata plan a body corporate is established under the name “Strata Corporation No. …” with the addition of the name of the strata scheme, and on registration of a community development scheme a body corporate is established under the name stated in the registered scheme. Section 71(3) gives it perpetual succession and a common seal and the capacity to sue and be sued in its corporate name, section 71(4) declares it an excluded matter for the purposes of section 5F of the Corporations Act, and section 71(5) requires it, as soon as practicable after establishment, to appoint a chairperson, secretary and treasurer.
New Zealand ties creation to deposit, and handles staging explicitly. Section 75(1) provides that when a unit plan is deposited under section 17, and in the case of a staged development when the first stage unit plan is deposited under section 24, a body corporate is created for the unit title development created by that deposit. Section 75(2) does the same for a subsidiary unit title development deposited under section 21. Section 75(3) sets the name: the words “Body Corporate Number” and the registered number of the unit plan. Section 76 makes the members the unit owners of all the units in the unit plan, while excluding, subject to listed exceptions, the owner for the time being of a stratum estate in a future development unit.
Victoria’s register reflects a wider range of structures than the single-entity model. Land Services Victoria describes unlimited owners corporations, which are the most common type and carry the functions and powers under the Owners Corporations Act 2006 without limitation; limited owners corporations, which may be defined as “limited” or “limited to common property” and which where there is no common property usually exist to manage common services within the land; and multiple owners corporations, which are common in large multi-storey apartment buildings, commercial properties and mixed residential and non-residential developments, and which may also appear where only certain lots are entitled to use particular common property. A plan may define several separate common properties, each with its own identifying number, and the registry notes that multiple common properties usually indicate that the lots are affected by multiple owners corporations. Rules are a developer decision at this point too: a set of model rules in Schedule 2 of the Owners Corporations Regulations 2018 applies to all owners corporations, and a developer may set out rules to be recorded with the plan of subdivision, with a consolidated copy required when rules are lodged because only one set is recorded against an owners corporation.
How are unit entitlements set, and what do they drive?
Entitlements are set by a valuer or a surveyor before registration, on a statutory basis, and they then drive levies, voting and in some jurisdictions the share of the land itself. They are the part of the registration package with the longest tail, because they are hard to change afterwards.
New South Wales works from market value. Schedule 2 of the Strata Schemes Development Act 2015 (NSW) sets the requirements for schedules of unit entitlement, and is picked up by the definition of “valuer’s certificate” in section 4(1). Clause 2(1) provides that a schedule for a strata scheme that does not include a development lot must show as whole numbers the aggregate unit entitlement of all lots, and the proposed unit entitlement of each lot apportioned on a market value basis at the valuation day and totalling that aggregate. Clause 1 defines “market value basis” as the basis for determining the value of the lot prescribed by the regulations, and “valuation day” as the day prescribed by the regulations for the purposes of the clause in which the term is used, so both are regulation-dependent and worth confirming against the current regulation rather than assumed.
Staged schemes use a split basis, which is the point most often misunderstood. Clause 2(2) provides that where a scheme includes a development lot, the schedule must show as whole numbers the aggregate for all lots including development lots; the proposed entitlement of each development lot and the aggregate proposed entitlement of all non-development lots apportioned on the basis of land value within the meaning of the Valuation of Land Act 1916; and the proposed entitlement of each non-development lot apportioned on a market value basis at the valuation day. One schedule, two valuation bases, and a drafting error between them is not a cosmetic problem.
Queensland runs two schedules on different principles. Section 46 of the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (Qld) distinguishes the contribution schedule, which carries each lot’s contribution schedule lot entitlement, from the interest schedule, which carries each lot’s interest schedule lot entitlement. Section 46(6) requires a lot entitlement to be a whole number but not zero. For a scheme established after the commencement of the relevant subsection, section 46(7) requires the contribution schedule entitlements to be consistent with either the equality principle or the relativity principle, and section 46(8) requires the interest schedule entitlements to be consistent with the market value principle.
Section 46A(1) defines the equality principle as the principle that the lot entitlements must be equal, except to the extent to which it is just and equitable in the circumstances for them not to be equal, and the Act gives examples, including a layered arrangement whose lots have different uses such as car parking, commercial, hotel and residential with different requirements for public access or maintenance, and a commercial scheme in which one lot uses a larger volume of water or conducts a higher-risk activity. Section 46B(1) defines the market value principle as the principle that entitlements must reflect the respective market values of the lots, except to the extent to which it is just and equitable for them not to. Section 46B(2)(b) adds a valuation rule that changes the answer materially on land subdivisions: for establishing the market value of a lot created under a standard format plan of subdivision or a volumetric format plan of subdivision, buildings and improvements on the lot are to be disregarded.
Section 46(9) requires regard to be had to how the scheme is structured, the nature, features and characteristics of the lots, and the purposes for which the lots are used. Section 46(10) provides that a change to a lot entitlement takes effect on the recording of a new community management statement incorporating the change, which ties any adjustment back to the section 54 and section 62 consent machinery.
Tasmania allows general and special entitlements. Section 16 provides that each lot created by a plan has a unit entitlement, which may be a general unit entitlement operating for all purposes of the Act, or a special unit entitlement operating for one or more of fixing the owner’s proportionate contribution to the body corporate, fixing the owner’s proportionate interest in the common property, fixing the number of votes exercisable at a general meeting, and fixing the proportion of the body corporate’s income apportioned to the owner. Where a lot has a special entitlement for a particular purpose it must also have a general entitlement for other purposes. Section 16(4) requires a unit entitlement to be a whole number, section 16(5) allows it to be the same for each lot or to vary, and section 16(6) sets the standard: unit entitlements must be fixed on a fair and equitable basis. Section 10(2) then shows what the entitlement buys, providing that the owners of the lots are, in equity, tenants in common of the common property in shares proportionate to the unit entitlements of their respective lots.
Changing them later is deliberately hard. Section 17(1) allows a change by unanimous resolution of the body corporate, by order under Part 9, or, where the total entitlements of the affected lots are not altered, by agreement between the owners of those lots with the consent of registered mortgagees and lessees. Section 17(2) provides that a change does not take effect until the plan is changed by registration of an amendment including it.
Victoria splits the concept in two. Land Services Victoria states that the owner or developer must engage a licensed surveyor to set out the initial allocation of lot entitlement and lot liability on the owners corporation schedule in the plan of subdivision, and that the basis must be described on the owners corporation additional information form and be in accordance with section 27F(4) and (5) of the Subdivision Act 1988. Once a plan is registered the entitlements and liabilities become publicly searchable in an owners corporation search report. Altering them later requires a unanimous resolution, after which an application can be made to record the new figures.
Western Australia and New Zealand both put a registered or licensed valuer in the chain, with an expiry. Landgate’s guide records that a certificate given by a licensed valuer for the purpose of the schedule of unit entitlements is valid for a period of two years, that a plan whose certificate has lapsed takes the status Lapsed, and that a new certificate together with payment of the lapsed fee will be required. In New Zealand, section 38(1) of the Unit Titles Act 2010 requires the registered proprietor or owner, before a unit plan is deposited, to assign an ownership interest to every principal and accessory unit and a proposed ownership interest to every proposed principal and accessory unit. Section 38(2) requires that interest to be the one assessed by a registered valuer on the basis of the value of the unit relative to each other unit, and section 32(2)(b) bars deposit unless a certificate in the prescribed form has been given in writing by a registered valuer showing the ownership interest or proposed ownership interest assessed under section 38(2) for each unit on the plan.
Section 38(3) is the clearest statutory statement anywhere of why this schedule matters beyond levies. The ownership interest is used to determine, among other things, the beneficial interest of the owner of the principal unit in the common property; the share in the value of any buildings, fixtures and other improvements in relation to leasehold land; voting rights when a poll is requested under section 99; the share in the underlying fee simple on cancellation of the unit plan; the extent of the obligation for contributions levied in respect of any capital improvement fund; rights on a distribution of surplus money from that fund; the extent of the obligation for payment of ground rental; and the extent of liability for damages and costs under section 142.
How does a market value apportionment reconcile?
The arithmetic is simple, and it should be checkable from the valuer’s figures. The illustration below uses round numbers rather than market evidence.
Take a ten-lot scheme where the valuer assesses market values at the valuation day as follows: four two-bedroom lots at $850,000 each, four three-bedroom lots at $1,150,000 each, and two larger top-floor lots at $2,000,000 each. The totals are $3,400,000, $4,600,000 and $4,000,000, giving an aggregate market value of $12,000,000. With the aggregate unit entitlement set at 1,200, each lot’s entitlement is its share of that $12,000,000 applied to 1,200.
- Two-bedroom lot: $850,000 of $12,000,000, applied to 1,200, gives 85
- Three-bedroom lot: $1,150,000 of $12,000,000, applied to 1,200, gives 115
- Top-floor lot: $2,000,000 of $12,000,000, applied to 1,200, gives 200
The schedule reconciles: four lots at 85 is 340, four at 115 is 460, and two at 200 is 400, totalling 1,200. A two-bedroom lot then carries 85 of 1,200, or 7.08 per cent of whatever the body corporate budgets, and a top-floor lot carries 200 of 1,200, or 16.67 per cent.
Now change one input and leave everything else alone. If the two top-floor lots are assessed at $2,500,000 each instead, the aggregate market value becomes $13,000,000 and the aggregate entitlement can be set at 1,300. The two-bedroom lots stay at 85 and the three-bedroom lots at 115, while each top-floor lot moves to 250. The schedule still reconciles at 340 plus 460 plus 500, or 1,300. But the two-bedroom lot’s share of the budget has fallen from 7.08 per cent to 85 of 1,300, or 6.54 per cent, and the top-floor share has risen from 16.67 per cent to 19.23 per cent.
That is the lever worth understanding before the schedule is signed. Nothing about the two-bedroom apartments changed, and their levy share moved anyway, because a market value apportionment is relative by construction. Where a scheme mixes uses with very different values and very different demands on the common property, the two can pull in opposite directions, which is the gap the Queensland equality and relativity principles and the Victorian split between lot entitlement and lot liability are each addressing in their own way.
Which time limits can send the programme backwards?
Several, and they tend not to appear on a construction programme because they sit with consultants and registries rather than with the builder.
In Western Australia there are two independent two-year clocks. The first is the licensed valuer’s certificate for the schedule of unit entitlements, which Landgate’s guide states is valid for two years, with a lapsed plan requiring a new certificate and a lapsed fee. The second concerns survey-strata plans and the Western Australian Planning Commission: the guide states that the Registrar of Titles will not be permitted to issue certificates of title for lots on a survey-strata plan if two years has elapsed since the Commission endorsed the plan, that this applies to plans endorsed before or after 1 May 2020, and that the plan will need to be re-lodged or re-submitted to the Commission for approval. A project that pauses for eighteen months between endorsement and registration is therefore working inside a window rather than against an open deadline.
In the Australian Capital Territory the windows are much shorter. Documents such as site plans must be less than three months old when the Unit Title Assessment Report is finished, and the report itself must be less than three months old. The revenue certificate adds a timing dependency of its own, because it confirms no unpaid land tax for the quarter in which the plan will be registered, which means a slipped registration date can require a fresh certificate. The Territory’s guidance also offers a practical concession on large plans, allowing plans to be emailed for early checking, with a large plan defined as Class A with more than 50 units or Class B with more than 20 units, and plans with fewer units accepted early where the situation is complex.
In New South Wales the pressure point is the section 54(1)(b)(iii) requirement that each relevant building was completed not more than 12 months, or a longer period fixed by the local council in the particular case, before the strata certificate application was made.
In New Zealand the sharpest deadline sits after registration rather than before it, and it is the purchaser’s remedy that matters. Section 147(2) of the Unit Titles Act 2010 requires the seller, no later than the fifth working day before the settlement date, to provide a pre-settlement disclosure statement to the buyer. Section 147(3) requires it to contain the prescribed information and a certificate given by the body corporate certifying that the information is correct, and section 147(4) permits a body corporate to withhold that certificate if any debt due to it by the unit owner is unpaid. Section 146(1) separately requires a pre-contract disclosure statement before a buyer enters into an agreement for sale and purchase, with section 146(2), as replaced on 9 May 2023 by the Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2022, requiring it to contain the prescribed information to the extent it is capable of being provided. Section 146(3), inserted by the same amendment, provides that non-compliance may allow the settlement date in a subsequent agreement to be delayed under section 149 or the agreement to be cancelled under section 149A. Section 149 sets out the delay mechanism where pre-contract disclosure is late, incomplete, inaccurate or not made at all. Section 148, which previously allowed a buyer to request additional disclosure, was repealed on 9 May 2023.
A developer-controlled body corporate withholding its own certificate over an unpaid levy is an odd-looking scenario, but the provision is a reminder that the certifying party on a settlement-critical document is the scheme, not the seller.
How does registration timing flow into the feasibility?
Registration is the event that converts presold stock into cash, so the date it happens is the date the model should be using for settlement receipts, not practical completion. The gap between the two is where a lot of feasibilities quietly understate cost.
Three effects are worth modelling separately. Interest keeps accruing on the facility over any gap, so the peak exposure and the date it unwinds both move, which is covered in the guide to peak debt and funding exposure. Holding costs continue on unsold and unsettled stock, and after registration they begin arriving as owners corporation levies on every lot the developer still owns rather than as a single set of outgoings on one title, which is the shift the land holding costs guide deals with. And the settlement profile itself changes shape: a registration date that slips past the end of a quarter can push a block of settlements into a later period, which is a timing question rather than a profit question but behaves like a cash crisis, and is one reason development cashflow modelling is more useful than a static margin calculation on a project with presales.
The levers available tend to be sequencing rather than cost. Getting the valuer’s certificate and the entitlement schedule settled early matters in jurisdictions with an expiry on them, and getting consents from mortgagees and caveators lined up before the plan is lodged removes the dependency most likely to sit outside the developer’s control. The trap is treating registration as a task that begins when the building is finished, when several of its inputs are dated from the moment they are issued.
What applies in South Australia and the Northern Territory?
The governing legislation is the Community Titles Act 1996 (SA), the Strata Titles Act 1988 (SA) and the Unit Title Schemes Act 2009 (NT). The broad structure is comparable to the jurisdictions above: a plan is deposited or registered with the relevant titles office, and a community corporation or body corporate comes into existence on registration. The content requirements, consents, certificates and entitlement rules differ, and the Acts themselves and the relevant titles office are where to take them from for a project in either jurisdiction.
What to ask your property lawyer, your surveyor and your valuer
The questions below are the ones that decide the outcome on a particular project’s facts, and they are deliberately not answered in this guide.
Ask your property lawyer:
- Which certificate or approval stands between our completed building and the registry in this jurisdiction, who issues it, and what is the realistic elapsed time from application to issue on a project of this size?
- Are we inside any statutory window that runs from building completion, and if we are at risk of falling outside it, what does an application to the council for a longer period involve?
- Who must sign or consent to the plan here, and is there anything on the title now, a caveat, a writ, a restrictive covenant, a lease or more than one mortgage, that will need to be dealt with before lodgement?
- If this is a staged or mixed-use scheme, what has to accompany the plan at first lodgement, and what happens to the schedule and the scheme documents at each later stage?
- How does the settlement machinery in our off-the-plan contracts interact with the registration date, and what rights do purchasers have if registration is later than the date we have told them?
- Where the first scheme document can only be replaced with the consent of the owners, what should be in it now that we will not be able to add later?
- What disclosure do we owe purchasers before contract and before settlement, who certifies it, and what is our exposure if it turns out to be incomplete or inaccurate?
Ask your licensed or registered surveyor:
- What exactly will the plan have to show here, and are there any boundary, encroachment or building-definition issues on this site that will need resolving before you can certify it?
- Where a boundary runs through a structure, what will the plan say, and is the statutory default acceptable for how we intend the building to be used and maintained?
- What is the current lodgement route and electronic lodgement requirement, and does anything about this plan put it in a category that attracts early checking or longer examination?
- On the initial allocation of entitlements or liabilities, what basis will you use and how will you describe it in the accompanying information?
- What requisitions do you most often see on plans of this type in this jurisdiction, and what can we do now to avoid them?
Ask your valuer:
- On what basis is the schedule assessed here, and does this scheme involve more than one basis, for example a staged scheme where development lots and completed lots are assessed differently?
- Does your certificate have an expiry, and what date should we be working back from so it does not lapse before the plan registers?
- What is the valuation date, and how sensitive is the resulting apportionment to movements between now and then?
- Where this scheme mixes uses, how are you proposing to treat lots whose value and whose demand on the common property point in different directions?
- What would need to change for the schedule to be reassessed later, and what is the practical difficulty of doing that once owners hold lots?
Where strata plan registration sits in the delivery sequence
It sits at the very end of delivery and at the very start of the scheme’s own life, and it depends on work done much earlier. The plan is drawn by a surveyor against the approved drawings, so a building that deviates from its approval creates a registration problem rather than only a compliance one. The entitlement schedule is assessed by a valuer against values at a statutory date, so the schedule is a function of when it is done. The certificate or approval in the middle is issued by a council, a registered certifier or a territory authority against the building as built. The consents come from parties with their own interests. And the registrar checks the lot against statutory content requirements that leave little room for argument.
Read in that order, the registration gate is mostly a set of dated dependencies owned by other people. The question a developer is in a position to answer early is not whether the plan will register, but what the longest of those dependencies is on this project, and whether the settlement dates already promised to purchasers were set with that in mind.