Williamson Maurice: Unit Titles Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williamson Maurice: Unit Titles Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 30 March 2010. Volume:661;Page:10216. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Housing 
: I move  
That the Unit Titles Bill be now read a third time 
. I am really pleased to be involved in the final stage of a bill that I think is bringing the whole issue of units and multiple unit blocks into the 21st century. I am delighted to know that this legislation has the support of the whole House. I am pleased that those living and working in unit title developments will finally have up-to-date contemporary legislation that reflects the best practice in property management and maintenance. 
Two or three of the key elements of this bill that I think will make a huge difference are certainly those to do with the voting rights issue. When the unit titles legislation was first put before this House many many years ago the average size of a block of units was three or four units. They were just a couple of flats here or a couple of flats there and things like having to have 100 percent agreement whenever one wanted to make a change to the body corporate made sense. They really did. 
But now huge blocks of apartments have been built—in Auckland we can see them on the skyline wherever we look. It can take just one particular tenant to hold up the process of getting a body corporate to make an agreement because the unanimous agreement of all the tenants is needed. The tenant may not even be doing that deliberately as he or she might be an absentee tenant living overseas. The requirement for unanimity has been changed in this legislation so that a 75 percent vote of all the tenants can make changes to the body corporate. 
From my perspective in the building and construction portfolio there is one more important part in this bill and that is the requirement on the big blocks and apartments to have a schedule for long-term maintenance that will be required and a long-term maintenance fund to fund it. One of the things that we are finding in some of the big buildings in Auckland is that they have not had any maintenance done. So 15 or 20 years after they are built they have serious problems with cracks leaks and so on. Those buildings would not be leaky buildings if right from day one they had had proper maintenance and had been looked after and cared for. This bill forces the big bodies corporate to publish their schedule and to maintain those buildings just as we would with our motorcar. The warranty for our motorcar would be void if we did not keep putting oil into it looking after it and so on. Well it is the same thing now with buildings. 
New Zealanders choose two very different lifestyles in this country. A lot of New Zealanders like the quarter-acre section. They like to live in their dream home by themselves. But an increasing number pursue what I think is the more urban lifestyle. They take advantage of the best that our inner-city communities have to offer. Both options are pretty good. I think it is fantastic that this bill makes urban and intensive living an attractive and viable option for those who want to live that lifestyle. 
This bill does not just provide choices for people at the fast-paced urban end of the spectrum. The best thing about this bill is its versatility. It provides a framework for creating new and innovative communities through the layered developments provision it caters for small suburban developments through exemptions from some financial management and governance provisions and it ensures the regulatory framework is scalable to the size of the development. It enables commercial developments such as office blocks or shopping malls to make good property choices that lower the cost of doing business. It provides protection for all in unit title developments and in particular for those most vulnerable to being taken advantage of such as people living in small-scale pensioner housing on unit title tenure. 
The key benefits that this bill will have for those New Zealanders living and working in unit title developments are the provisions that relate to management governance and maintenance. The changes will mean that unit owners and bodies corporate will have the necessary tools to get things done quickly and efficiently. I think that that is the key thing about this bill. They will be tools for the modern era which will allow things to be done quickly and efficiently for the benefit of the majority of the owners. I know of too many cases already where one owner has caused huge problems for the rest of the tenants just by not being prepared to agree to what I would have thought looked like a very sensible proposal for the body corporate. 
These benefits are particularly relevant for those unit owners and bodies corporate in leaky buildings because the changes clarify their rights and responsibilities. In addition the passing of this bill means that they will be able to act more quickly and decisively when they need to make decisions about taking claims and getting repair work done. 
I am pleased to stand here this afternoon and shepherd through the House this small but I think integral part of the solution that this Government is looking to try to get with regard to leaky homes but it has a far wider range for all of those New Zealanders who live in apartments and unit titles. As the Hon John Key said in his statement to Parliament this Government is committed to better regulation and the Unit Titles Bill is certainly an excellent example of better regulation. 
I thank all of those who were involved in this bill from the long passage where it started back with the previous Labour Government—and I give absolute credit to Labour members for the genesis of where this legislation came from—to a whole lot of people who contributed through submissions to the Social Services Committee to the various organisations like the New Zealand Law Society the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors the Property Council the Property Institute of New Zealand the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand Crockers Strata Management the Auckland Regional Council and the Auckland City Council. The list goes on and I do not want to spend the rest of the afternoon listing them because I know that members want to get away for Easter but a lot of people contributed to this legislation. It is great legislation. I commend it to the House.