Articles written by bauerm
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Trustees of body corporates serving sectional title schemes, especially those who have just been elected and are new to the position, are often not aware that the Prescribed Management Rules governing sectional title schemes lay it down that at the first trustee meeting following the Annual General Meeting the trustees must investigate and decide on the insurance policy for the year ahead and this must be ‘adequate’ to meet the scheme’s full needs.
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Saturday, April 9, 2011
“Time and again,” says Bauer, “we come across the attitude, “Why should I buy when I can rent at a monthly payment that can be a much as 30% below the monthly bond payment – and which leaves me free of repair and maintenance costs and able to move on as and when I feel like it?”
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Saturday, April 9, 2011
Even though we have been through three years in which property lost much of its appeal for many investors, there are still many astute property investors who, right now, see buy-to-let residential property as a good prospect and get good returns – but, says Michael Bauer, general manager of the property management company IHFM, there are others who are investing in property without a proper plan and very often for the wrong reasons.
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Saturday, April 9, 2011
“What we are now witnessing,” he said, “is a scenario in which the value of sectional title and other property in the CBD continues to rise steadily because people can no longer accept the lengthy commuter times of up to two hours a day, nor are they prepared to pay the continually rising car maintenance and petrol costs which commuting generates.”
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Saturday, April 9, 2011
Michael Bauer, the sectional title expert and the general manager of the sectional title management company IHFM, said recently that previously the Sectional Title Act specified that any items inside the median line drawn through the middle of the unit’s outer walls was the full responsibility of the owner, while any items outside that line was the full responsibility of the body corporate. If it was placed on the median line the responsibility was shared. Window frames, said Bauer, can be either on the median line, inside it or outside it – “which of course means that the whole matter of their maintenance was bound to lead to controversy”.
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Saturday, April 9, 2011
“These complaints,” says Michael Bauer, general manager of the property management company, IHFM, “are usually valid. We had one scheme of 22 units in which after the installation of separate meters it was found that the occupants of two units were responsible for 70% of the total municipal cost.”
This type of situation, he says, is not uncommon and is typically found in bodies corporate with a high investor ratio, where the landlords have allowed the units to be overcrowded, often well beyond the capacity for which it was designed.
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Saturday, April 9, 2011
The Sectional Titles Act recognises that the trustees of sectional title bodies corporate, unlike the directors of independent companies, are unpaid volunteers and may lack the full experience required for their positions. For this reason it indemnifies trustees against prosecution for what are clearly errors but still retains its full powers should they try to defraud the scheme or act with gross negligence.
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Saturday, April 9, 2011
This, he said, results in IHFM then drawing up two budgets, one for current operational expenses and one for the capital expenditure likely to be required over the coming years. Such budgeting, said Bauer, is essential if the scheme is to be well managed and see its units increase in value.
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Monday, May 24, 2010
Although a fairly high percentage of sectional title schemes in South Africa are poorly run and even heading for big debt and maintenance problems, there is, says Michael Bauer, General Manager of IHFM, which specialises in sectional title management, a marked reluctance among sectional title property owners to attend the all-important Annual General Meetings at which difficult matters can be sorted out.
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