Graham’s Explanatory Articles

Specialist Sectional Title Resources

Life Rights

Graham has written a series of articles on Life Rights. You may view them here:

Paddocks Approach to Government to Clarify Lockdown Regulations

Graham and Prof CG van der Merwe have drafted a document which has been submitted to government requesting urgent action. Please download and read it. If you support this initiative, please tell others, including your member of parliament. To get government to take action, a groundswell of emails to politicians and government officials will be required. The more people who express support, the greater the chance of government taking notice and acting.

Read the full article here.

The Use of Sectional Title Common Property in Lockdown

The debate about whether the common property in a sectional title scheme can be used by residents during the COVID-19 lockdown has become extremely heated. The Disaster Management regulations do not apply to the common property within sectional title schemes. This is because the Disaster Management Regulations confine people to their ”place of residence” and in sectional title, you own a section and a share of common property, for residential purposes.

Read the full article here.

Effect of the STSMA on Existing Rules

Trustees and owners need to know how the STSM Act changed their scheme’s rules on 7 October 2016. In this article Graham explains how the new law changed the rules of existing schemes. He sets out a step-by-step process for determining what newly prescribed rules apply and how to assess whether any rules that the scheme had previously changed or added continue to apply or are no longer valid.

Read the full article here.

Explanation of Sectional Title Rules

Sectional Titles Scheme Rules under the 2016 legislation: The regulations under the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act, 2011, determined that body corporate rules must be considered to be laws made by and for a scheme’s body corporate, and required that they be interpreted as laws. In the light of the 2016  legislation, Graham Paddock has re-examined the subject of these rules. He has looked at the four types of rules a developer or body corporate can make, leading to conclusions as to the  type of issues that can be regulated in each type of rule and he has compared rules with other types of regulation, such as registered title deed conditions and general laws. Finally he has applied his conclusions to the controversial issue of short-term letting rules in sectional titles schemes.

Read the full article here.

Coral Island Body Corporate vs Hodge – More Questions Than Answers.

In this article, Graham discusses the Coral Island Body Corporate v Hoge case, where a body corporate took an owner to High Court, rather than making use of the CSOS. Graham discusses the order given by the judge, as well as the implications of this judgement, both on the body corporate and the board of trustees who made the decision to pursue the case in this way.

Read the full article here.