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Housing Ministry moves closer to amending Condominium Act
Kaieteur News – Stakeholder consultations to streamline the amendment of the Condominium (Regulation and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act are slated to begin by the first week of June 2021.
Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal.
This is according to Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal, who made the announcement during an update of housing projects, on Friday. Minister Croal stated that the Attorney General’s Chambers is in the process of completing the draft amendment.
“The first draft we’re expecting by the new week and then it goes through the consultative process with our key stakeholders, for example, the banks, insurance companies and other relevant institutions that will have to give their input,” Minister Croal said.
Feedback garnered from the stakeholder forum will play an integral role in development of the legislation. By September, Croal anticipates that the Bill will be presented to Parliament for consideration. The amendment of the Act will pave the way for owners of condominiums and duplexes to access titles for their land.
Additionally, commercial banks would also be able to accept the properties as collateral and offer loans to the homeowners for expansion and insurance companies will also be allowed to issue policies for protection.
Currently the Act caters for the regulation and division of properties into parts that are to be owned individually and parts that are to be owned in common, to make provision for the use and management of such properties and to make provision for the assignment of certain properties owned by the Government.
During the budget debates earlier this year, failure to amend the Condominium Act to include duplexes has resulted in further suffering for Guyanese who purchased such properties under the former government since insurance, title, or collateral value cannot be derived from such properties. Croal noted that dozens of duplexes built by the Granger administration lacked the legislative support they need.
“The fact is, Mr. Speaker, even when the Coalition had one big idea for housing, even that they could not get right! Their big idea? … Let’s introduce duplexes! And they proceeded to have contractors construct duplexes but did not think to have the Condominium Act amended to include this type of house,” Minister Croal had explained in his budget speech.
He added, “The result is, those citizens who invested their hard-earned dollars into those houses cannot get insurance or titles and even more worrying is that banks are not amenable to holding duplexes as collateral.
As such, he underscored that Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, SC, will be bringing legislation to amend the Condominium Act to allow banks to accept titles for those houses, as it is with other homeowners.
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