Shanks Katrina: Unit Titles Bill — In Committee 
Shanks Katrina: Unit Titles Bill — In Committee 
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KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to rise and take a call this afternoon on the Unit Titles Bill. Firstly I would like to sincerely thank the officials who supported us with this bill through the select committee process and also the submitters who came to the Social Services Committee and made submissions. A lot of them brought some very relevant points that we considered in the select committee deliberations and they influenced what we did with the bill and what has come forward to the House. I thank them for their submissions. They were very powerful submissions. We realise that many of the submitters put a lot of work effort and time into their submissions and no doubt cost as well as the costs to come here to make their submissions. We appreciate what they have done towards making this bill the way it is today. 
National went into the election on a platform of streamlining and simplifying regulations and this bill is just one more way of achieving that. 
Moana Mackey 
: Katrina this was our bill. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: Labour began looking at this bill in 2004 but it is National that has delivered it in 2010. The bill is before the House now and is being presented by a great Government that once again is delivering on its promises. The initial Unit Titles Act 1972 was designed for small residential flats and was applied to a range of complex large and mixed-use developments. In 2007 there were 16500 developments and 95000 units. As members can see times have changed and it looks like over half a million people will be living in apartments town houses and high-rise buildings within 50 years so it important that we get this legislation right. The framework will stand true for a period of time. The bill will provide broader and more adaptable ways of setting up and managing multi-unit living both now and in the foreseeable future which is important. 
The bill has attracted enormous support throughout the sector and the industry. There has been consultation and feedback has been highly positive in terms of the direction of the policy initiatives that have been put in place. A range of problems were identified. They included issues with joint decision-making building maintenance financial management governance of developments information disclosure consumer protection and dispute resolution. Those issues have all been addressed in this bill. 
One thing I want to touch on is the definition of a “principal unit” in Part 1 which is what we are debating in the Committee stage at the moment. The issue was that the definition was too narrow and would restrict some current use of unit titles such as car parks. This issue was emphasised by the New Zealand Property Group in particular. The further issue in respect of the definition of a “principal unit” was whether the ability to create open space units would be retained although many car parks would still be allowed to be created. So there was a change that was needed. The definition of “principal unit” would be widened to include car parks whether or not they comprised open space. The recommendation did not include changes that would enable other forms of open space units to be created. When we are talking about definitions it is important that we get those right because they influence everything else going forward. 
The other little area I would like to touch on in this part of the debate is time-share developments. The New Zealand Holiday Ownership Council supported the bill but said it needed new definitions for time-shares. The Lake Edge Resort body corporate and Richard Martin made very strong very accurate formal submissions on this matter. They said that this legislation did not intend to impact them but in fact it did; they had slipped through the net. Because of those submissions the bill had to deal with the specific operating procedures of time-share developments. If this provision was not included it would have made running time-share resorts very difficult moving forward. The committee addressed that issue specifically in regard to the voting quorum and the body corporate’s ability to levy. We inserted a new schedule to provide specific modifications for time-share developments that are unit title developments. Other amendments were put in place as necessary for holiday homes and time-shares. It was interesting to consider the bill at the Social Services Committee. I look forward to talking about it further on during this debate. Thank you.