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Strata Global Group, a sister company of Better Homes, announced that a community management appointment has been entered into with Lavasa Corporation, developer of India’s first and largest hill city project, conceptualized in post independence India.

Kent O’Brien-CEO of Strata Global adds, “To be associated with the Lavasa City brand, considered to be the face of India’s next generation of developments is a unique opportunity for the company.”

The arrangement is unique inasmuch as the community management agreement also entails property management from handover including leasing (short & long term) of villas and the apartment buildings concurrently with the master community, owners association and common property management. To facilitate the separation of responsibilities, Strata Global will acquire a Betterhomes franchise agreement for Lavasa City for the purpose of leasing and property management.

Lavasa is set amidst seven hills with a 60 km lake front, led by Hindustan Construction Company (HCC Group) and is being developed as the ultimate residential, wellness and lifestyle destination in India. It will consist of four towns, the first of which is Dasve, scheduled to be completed end of 2010. Dasve will offer a choice of elegant housing, from Portofino – inspired lakeside apartments to a multiple array of villas in Goan-Mediterranean design.

The entire development will accommodate 200,000 permanent residents and thousands more holiday second home residents as it is 3 hours’ drive from Mumbai and 1 hour from Pune. Additionally, it has tourist facilities to cater to 2,000,000 tourists yearly. Apart from this the development includes partnerships with Faldo Academies, Accor, Oxford University, Hilton and many others to accommodate to the educational needs.
Kent O’Brien, CEO mentions “The Lavasa City arrangement is the first of its kind for a specialist Dubai-based community management company.”

This arrangement will assist in concluding contracts with several large-scale high profile projects in India in particular Mumbai for which negotiations have commenced. To facilitate effective community management services in Dubai and India, Strata Global has introduced a user friendly community management software application which is internationally acknowledged.

“This, in addition to our experience with The Wave, Muscat and other Oman projects, will help us establish the standard for professional management of communities in the new India and GCC communities. Our software has also been introduced into Egypt following an international tender, placing Strata Global at the forefront of community management in the region,” he added.

Lavasa has been widely recognized as the benchmark for future Indian development and several state governments have shown interest in replicating the master planned community to such an extent that a further project is earmarked for an area near Chennai.

Commenting on Tameer’s pro-active efforts in adopting and implementing the regulations, Federico Tauber, President of Tameer Holding Investment LLC said, “Dubai has always been at the forefront when it comes to the real estate and property sector. The new regulatory framework redefines the responsibilities and obligations of all parties, and strengthens and extends the rights of owners. At Tameer, we have always strived to achieve the highest standards in customer satisfaction, and these new guidelines will help compliment our efforts. We are proud to be amongst the first developers to embrace the new framework.”

The objectives of the meeting were successfully accomplished and included the election of the Interim Owners Association Board. Tameer and Strata Global will now begin educating the Interim Board and Owners in the management of the project, the creation and registration within the next two months of the Jointly Owned Property Declaration, including the review of budgets, supply agreements for presentation to the First Owners General Assembly and any other relevant matters pertaining to the management of Palace Towers moving forward. The recent meeting also provided the opportunity to review matters related to maintenance of the common property as well as other general Owners Association administrative issues”, added Tauber.

The meeting held at Palace Towers was attended by owners and senior members from Tameer in addition to Strata Global who, as experienced international Consultants and Owners Association Managers, will ensure experienced and quality management is available to owners for the successful implementation of the Strata Regulations and the seamless handover from the current management of Palace Towers to the Owners Association once registered.

Strata is a term used to describe ‘jointlyowned property’ and relates to ownership of property in a location where a unit has been divided into several units used for private ownership and common areas (owned in common by all unit owners in the development), and where the responsibility for day-to-day management remains with an Owner’s Association. All unit owners within a property become members of the Owner’s Association on registration of the unit at the Lands Department. Membership of the Owner’s Association and ownership of the unit are inseparable. Jointly-owned
Property is therefore a form of Strata ownership.

“After 20 years of experience in the Australian market and recently in GCC countries, Strata Global is now in a strong position to empower the UAE community as the Strata rules and regulations take hold”, said Kent O’Brien, CEO and Managing Director, Strata Global. “It is essential for all individuals and businesses involved with the ownership of jointly owned real estate, to have knowledge of the laws, and that can be achieved by attending seminars organised by RERA and our company”, added O’Brien.

Strata Law is new to the UAE, but has been a common system in places such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Singapore for the last 50 years. “The rights and obligations of all parties will be affected by the laws and in most cases noncompliance such as non disclosure may allow the contractual arrangements to be voidable or broken”, said O’Brien, who is passionate about a subject that will benefit all parties involved in Dubai’s long property history. “Owners and Occupants will now see Owner’s Associations taking on the management of properties with the aim of protecting
the Owner, the Occupant and the asset itself therefore as 13th October draws closer we will see the impact of strata law making significant inroads in to Dubai real estate.”

Strata management firm Strata Global helped set up owners’ associations for the first ten blocks of townhouses in the waterfront development.

Kent A O’Brien, CEO and managing director of the company says that this is only the first step for the community.

“A forum for each of the 14 sectors of the master community will also be established shortly. The owners’ associations may meet as often as requested and may formulate amendments to rules and by laws and also the budgets.”

Oman has had strata law in place for over 20 years as per the first Sultani Decree in 1989, explains Kent. “Although the laws are relatively detailed and have provisions such as the right to support and shelter, the rights of owners to form owners’ associations, and also for such groups to have independent juristic nature, their legal standing has not become commercial reality. Banks will not allow accounts to be in the owners’ associations’ name, and the associations have no legal right to enter into contracts, because the mechanics for the issue of a commercial license has not been formulated by the Ministry of Commerce.

“Essentially what we have in Dubai at the moment (‘pre-regulations’) is similar to Oman. The common area remains in the developers’ name in as much as a strata scheme cannot be registered under the current regime,” says Kent.

He says while the property industry in Oman has reacted favourably to the new strata laws introduced in 2006 and 2008, there is a lack of awareness about the Dubai stata laws.

However, he says there is interest among end-users in Dubai. “Over the past few months, I have been approached by an increasing number of owner groups seeking advice and input on a number of issues such as: how defects should be handled, how to secure access to financial information as it relates to past payments of service charges, how to trace the money, aged debtors’ history, review of contracts entered into with associated companies and general planning issues. The master developers and many sub-developers are in for a rude awakening when the implementation starts based mainly on their ignorance and a lack of awareness of what happens when owners have more control.”

Kent expects the Dubai strata regulations to be released shortly. “I feel, however, we will see a staged release in as much as implementation of the new title structuring and registration may not be as simple as originally perceived. The release of the regulations will see an immense change for the Dubai property market and may be the impetus for countries like Qatar to move forward strata laws.” However, one positive move in Dubai has been the formation of an interim owners’ committee in Arabian Ranches. This was established as a step towards setting up an owners’ association.