Gimcrack rules

Anonymous said:

"Is it true that as long we have not sign on the TA, we have not activated the 1 year 80% rule. If so, why don't we bide our time. When the economy turn around, we short circuit the en bloc process by launching TC ahead of our competitors "

Hmm..... you mean hold back on the first signature until the time is right?

Looking back at the Third Schedule it says:

Termination of collective sale committee  

12. —(1) A collective sale committee may be dissolved —
(a) by ordinary resolution at a general meeting of the management corporation convened in accordance with the Second Schedule; or
(b) upon the termination or expiry of the collective sale agreement.
[46/2007]
(2)    A collective sale committee that is constituted for the purposes of a collective sale of all lots and the common property in a strata title plan to which section 84A or 84FA applies, or a collective sale of all the flats and land in a development to which section 84D or 84E applies, shall be dissolved if —
(a) in the case of such a committee that is constituted before the date of commencement of section 10(g) of the Land Titles (Strata) (Amendment) Act 2010, at the end of a period of 12 months after that date; or
(b) in any other case, at the end of a period of 12 months after the committee is constituted, there is no collective sale agreement for that collective sale or no subsidiary proprietor or proprietor, as the case may be, has executed a collective sale agreement for that collective sale.

It seems pretty clear that if there is a draft CSA then there must be at least 1 signature to make it an active document within the 12 months starting from the date of the EGM to elect the sale committee.  

So the answer to your question is no, the sale committee cannot be in existence forever, they cannot keep the estate in limbo by withholding that first signature until the opportune time. Parliament has set the parameters, their intentions are clear, there has to be time limitations on the process. The SC has until their January deadline to a) get the terms and conditions of a CSA passed at an EGM and b) activate it with a single signature. The first signature will be the Date of the Agreement and from there on in they will have a second 12 months (until Jan 2013 in our case)  to reach the 80%.

It was under the old rules that a sale committee could hang about doing nothing, lying inactive for months, even years.  Now they have
[SC election]........[CSA/1st signature] :- 12 mths
[CSA/1st signature ........... 80%] :- 12 mths
[80%......conditional sale.......new80%....application for sale to STB] :- 12 mths

If this reading is not correct, then I will eat my hat. 
In fact someone ought to write to the sale committee with this question. 
Not me, as they don't seem to answer my queries....