When a building with a published notice is listed for sale, the people in the sale are sent word

The problem today

An owners corporation certificate is produced by two parties: the committee, which holds what the owners corporation knows, and the manager, who writes the certificate from the records it keeps. When what one holds and what the other holds do not match, the gap does not announce itself. A sale is not the moment to discover it.

The people who pay for the gap are the seller, who can lose the sale or face a claim after settlement, and the buyer, who inherits costs they never saw coming. Everyone else in the sale can say the same thing: nobody told me.

What the register does about it

PNDR watches the listing portals. When a building with a published notice appears for sale, PNDR sends the same short message, where it can reach them, to the selling agent, to the solicitors acting for the seller and the buyer, to the owners and, where it holds a contact, to the owners corporation's manager. That message from PNDR says a published notice exists and links to it. Reading the record is free.

It is the same notice for each building, every time, whoever lodged the record and whoever is selling. Nobody can buy it, stop it or move up the queue.

What changes for a seller

A seller whose building carries a notice knows the people in the sale have been told where the record is. There is no argument later about whether the information reached them, and no surprise after settlement that turns into a claim. For a seller who wants the sale to go through, that is protection.

What changes for a buyer

The buyer's adviser is told the record exists before contracts are exchanged. The notice does not say what to think about the record. It gives the address of the information and leaves the judgement to the people the buyer has engaged. The certificate can then be read beside the public record, which is the point.

One line for each person in the sale

• Buyer: before you sign, you can see whether the building has a published notice and what it says.
• Seller: the people in your sale are told about any notice before settlement, so there is no claim afterwards built on "nobody told me".
• Selling agent: when a notice reaches you, your file shows the date you were told and what you did with it.
• Solicitor, either side: a dated notice sits on the file before settlement, which is what you want there if the matter is ever revisited.
• Owners corporation: you are told first and can reply at no charge; a resolved status on the record is visible to anyone who searches.
• Committee members: not every committee knows what has to go on a certificate. When a building is on the register, the lodged record is in front of you before a certificate goes out, so that you and your committee, the people best placed to consider it, can.
• Managers: you are not always given every piece of information. When a matter is lodged, you can reconcile it against your own records before the certificate is issued, and go into it with the fuller picture.
• Service providers: the register does not chase your invoice; it makes sure the dispute over it is known at the one moment that matters to the building, its sale.
• The strata industry: a public record checked at the point of sale gives the certificates produced by those doing the right thing a way to stand apart.

Anyone can read the record, free. Everyone connected to a strata building has a right to know about the notices and disputes that belong on its record, and PNDR makes that record public so that nobody has to take anyone's word for it.

Has this been done before?

A public register that watches live listings and delivers the record to the sale, at no charge, has not been built in the Australian strata market before. If you know of one, tell us and we will say so here.

What the notice says, and does not say

• It says a published notice exists for the building, names the register and links to the record.
• It makes no comment on the notice and offers no opinion on the building.
• It attaches no fee. The record is free to read, for anyone, always.
• It does not tell anyone what they must do. What the law asks of each person in a sale is for them and their advisers.

Once the notice has been sent, nobody in that sale can say the information was not there.

When

The register opens for records in Victoria in November, and Strata Sales Watcher is built into it. Notices to the parties begin once our legal review of the message is done, and this page will say the day they start. Until then, anyone can watch a building and be told the moment a notice is lodged, replied to or resolved. During the Victorian launch period, lodging a notice is free. Searching is free. Replying is free. Removing or correcting your own notice is free. Any change to lodging fees will be announced on this page in advance.