How Can You Sell a Dual Occupancy Separately?

One of the advantages of a dual occupancy over a secondary dwelling is that a dual occupancy can be sold separately. The challenge is how to sell them separately.

Colin Fragar, our founder and CEO, discusses ways to sell dual occupancies separately.

Click on the “Play” button below to watch now:

 

Or for those that prefer to read, here is a transcript of the video…

So how can you sell a dual occupancy separately? And can you do that?

My name is Colin Fragar from Council Approval Group and I’m happy to say that the answer is yes, you can sell them separately. The question is how and sometimes it’s not that easy. However, it certainly is possible and it’s certainly worth pursuing further.

What is a Dual Occupancy?

So a dual occupancy, just to define that, is two dwellings on the same title. What we’re looking at doing is to separate those two properties onto separate titles.
You can only sell them separately, of course, if they’re on two separate titles. You can do that in two different ways. The first is what we call strata subdivision. The second is Torrens title subdivision.
Let me just run you through those two different types of subdivision quickly because they do relate to Dual Occupancy.

Two Types of Subdivision

A Torrens title subdivision is usually the best because it does often attract the highest end value and sale price. However, the disadvantage of Torrens title is sometimes you just can’t make it work for a dual occupancy and you need to go to the strata subdivision provisions.

The second disadvantage is that a Torrens title subdivision does have more sewer expenses, more what we call sewer headworks, you’re gonna have your own connection point coming into the actual lot of land. So it can be more expensive in terms of site costs and can add $20,000 to $50,000. I remember I was quoted on one of mine, and I decided at the last minute to switch to a strata subdivision. That strata subdivision I was able to pull off with about only $10,000 worth of site works instead of $50,000.

The disadvantage of a strata title, of course, is that you have some sort of a meeting once a year with your neighbour. If it’s just a 1 into 2 lot subdivision which we’re talking about for dual occupancy, then it’s very easy and certainly worth your time.

So can a Dual Occupancy be sold separately? The answer is yes. However, there are some things that we need to jump through for you and it’s not always the case. It does depend very much on the lot size, on your particular local government area, and the plans that relate to that in terms of the town planning law.

Work With the Experts

So what I would suggest is that you go ahead, if you haven’t already, and grab one of our guides on achieving council approval, which includes in there a bunch of tips and tricks on dual occupancies if you’re thinking about that or maybe thinking about subdivision or granny flats and it goes through that.

For those people that are serious about moving forward with their financial futures and helping their dreams come alive, then please book in for a consultation to speak to one of our council approval team at councilapproval.com.au.