New South Wales Consolidated Acts

CONVEYANCING ACT 1919 - SECT 196L

196L Effect of certain easements for access or services in buildings

(1) In this section:
"drainage" includes the product of rain, a storm, soakage, a spring or seepage.
"service" means a water, sewerage, drainage, gas, electricity, oil, garbage, air conditioning or telephone, television or radio impulses, signals or data transmission service or any other service prescribed by the regulations.

(2) This section applies to an easement:

(a) that gives a right of vehicular access or a right of personal access, or is an easement for a specified service, over or through or as appurtenant to a stratum lot that includes part of a building, and

(b) that is created by an instrument on or after the registration of a building management statement for the building under this Division, and

(c) the site of which is identified on a plan lodged in the office of the Registrar-General.

(3) The rights and obligations conferred or imposed by an easement to which this section applies are as specified in Schedule 8B, except in so far as those rights or obligations may have been varied or negatived under this section or in the instrument creating the easement.

(4) Nothing in section 88 or in subsection (2) (c) requires the site of an easement for a service referred to in subsection (2) (a) to be identified on a plan lodged in the office of the Registrar-General.

(5) The terms of an easement to which this section applies in so far as they relate to:

(a) responsibility for maintaining in good order or repairing the access or other things required for enjoyment of the easement, or

(b) the proportions in which the persons having the benefit or burden of the easement are liable to contribute towards the cost of maintaining in good order or repairing that access or those things,

may be varied by memorandum of variation in the approved form and registered under the Real Property Act 1900 as if it were a dealing.

(6) A variation of the terms of an easement referred to in subsection (5) must be executed by every person having an estate or interest registered under the Real Property Act 1900 in the land benefited or burdened by the easement.

(7) On the application of any person who has an estate or interest in any land that has the benefit or burden of an easement to which this section applies, the Supreme Court may, by order, vary the terms of the easement in so far as they relate to:

(a) responsibility for maintaining in good order or repairing the access or other things required for enjoyment of the easement, or

(b) the proportions in which the persons having the benefit or burden of the easement are liable to contribute towards the cost of maintaining in good order or repairing that access or those things.

(8) An order under subsection (7), when registered as provided by subsection (9), is binding on all persons, whether of full age or capacity or not, then entitled or later becoming entitled to the easement, and whether those persons are parties to the proceedings or have been served with notice or not.

(9) The Registrar-General must, on application made in the approved form, make all necessary recordings in the Register for giving effect to the order.

(10) If an expression used in an instrument that creates an easement to which this section applies is an expression in relation to which the provisions of section 181A and Schedule 8 operate, the provisions of this section and Schedule 8B prevail over those other provisions to the extent of any inconsistency.