Hi All, I purchased an investment property within the past year. I have recently learnt that I have not been receiving the Strata Levies and have now accrued punitive financial fees as a result which I've just paid. I had previously thought, "I haven't received any strata bills yet," but assumed that it must be an annual payment and trusted that Conveyancer/Real Estate Agent would have it all firmly in hand.
The issue at hand is that at time of purchase my Conveyancer supplied the Section 22 Cert and had filled out the section under "Person Acquiring Interest - Address for Services of Notice" with my name but with my investment property's address, and not my current residential address, nor my email.
As a consequence, the strata levies have been mailed to my investment property, and my tenants had unfortunately chosen to put the mail to the side instead of forwarding them to the managing agent.
I have taken this up with my Conveyancer and asked why he did not provide my ongoing residential address for "Address for Services of Notice", nor check with me to ascertain if I was buying to rent out or personally move into. In his own defence he is arguing that he's required to write the purchased property's address in that field. Is that true? Or is he telling me a furphy to get off the hook?
When I directly research up the Act it states that either a postal address or an email address can be supplied. It does not stipulate that if it's a postal address being supplied that it must be the same as the purchased property's.
Some months ago the Strata reached out to my Conveyancer to seek another way to get a hold of me given there had been no response to the mailed Levies, and unfortunately my Conveyancer did not supply them with my email nor phone number (not sure if ph number would be allowed).
I feel my Conveyancer is doing some buck passing and not owning up to the fact that he did not facilitate expert guidance in setting up effective communications between myself and the Owners/Strata Corp.
Or does the onus ultimately reside with me as the new Owner? I did not get in touch with Strata directly myself because in my previous experience up until now I haven't had to. Has my Conveyancer not done his due diligence nor guided me or is this admin detail always ultimately the owner's responsibility to know about it and ensure it has been done? I'll definitely be on top of it for any future purchases, but would have been good to know beforehand.
Thank you.
The issue at hand is that at time of purchase my Conveyancer supplied the Section 22 Cert and had filled out the section under "Person Acquiring Interest - Address for Services of Notice" with my name but with my investment property's address, and not my current residential address, nor my email.
As a consequence, the strata levies have been mailed to my investment property, and my tenants had unfortunately chosen to put the mail to the side instead of forwarding them to the managing agent.
I have taken this up with my Conveyancer and asked why he did not provide my ongoing residential address for "Address for Services of Notice", nor check with me to ascertain if I was buying to rent out or personally move into. In his own defence he is arguing that he's required to write the purchased property's address in that field. Is that true? Or is he telling me a furphy to get off the hook?
When I directly research up the Act it states that either a postal address or an email address can be supplied. It does not stipulate that if it's a postal address being supplied that it must be the same as the purchased property's.
Some months ago the Strata reached out to my Conveyancer to seek another way to get a hold of me given there had been no response to the mailed Levies, and unfortunately my Conveyancer did not supply them with my email nor phone number (not sure if ph number would be allowed).
I feel my Conveyancer is doing some buck passing and not owning up to the fact that he did not facilitate expert guidance in setting up effective communications between myself and the Owners/Strata Corp.
Or does the onus ultimately reside with me as the new Owner? I did not get in touch with Strata directly myself because in my previous experience up until now I haven't had to. Has my Conveyancer not done his due diligence nor guided me or is this admin detail always ultimately the owner's responsibility to know about it and ensure it has been done? I'll definitely be on top of it for any future purchases, but would have been good to know beforehand.
Thank you.
