WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY GET WHEN YOU BUY AN APARTMENT?
PURCHASING A UNIT IN A SECTIONAL TITLE SCHEME
While browsing the internet you see a listing for a beautiful modern apartment with sea views, secure garages, underground parking bays, a pool and beautifully maintained gardens for a fraction of the price of the houses you have been looking at. You go and view the apartment and while standing on your potential new private balcony you are told you that with the purchase you will get a storage room too. You start thinking this seems too good to be true… So what do you get when you buy an apartment?
Purchasing an apartment means that you are purchasing a Sectional Title Unit in a Sectional Scheme which consists of a “Section” together with an undivided share in the common property. The beautiful gardens and pool are usually common property and you will own an undivided share of these areas for use together with the other apartment owners in the block. Your private balcony, garage, underground parking bay, and storage room are generally called Exclusive Use Areas which are defined as “a part or parts of the common property for the exclusive use by the owner of a section.”
Did you know that you can hold your Exclusive Use Area/s in different ways?
- Registered Exclusive Use Area – Reserved on the sectional plan, common property allocated to a specific Section as an Exclusive Use Area & held by Certificate of Real Right of Exclusive Use. When the specific Section is sold the Exclusive Use Area will be ceded to the new owner of the Section by registration of a Notarial Deed.
- Allocated in terms of the Body Corporate Rules – Reserved by the developer on the opening of the Scheme or created by the Body Corporate, these rights are personal rights created in terms of the rules of the Scheme. They are not registerable in the Deeds Office.
- Alternatively it could be registered as a separate Section and have its own Title Deed.
Should you want to know how your property / potential new investment is held please contact us and we can make the necessary enquires!
- On September 29, 2019