Story
Why a body corporate, and not a share of a building
The structure was chosen for what happens when things go wrong, not for what happens when they go right.
about 6 minutesThere are simpler ways to sell a tenth of a property than forming a Limited Liability Partnership for it. A co-ownership deed is shorter. A fractional title is easier to explain. Both were considered and both were rejected, for the same reason.
Co-ownership fails at the first disagreement
Ten co-owners of a building are ten people who must agree, unanimously, on every act of management. There is no mechanism for a decision that nine want and one does not, and no mechanism at all for a decision that must be made this week.
The usual answer is a side agreement between the co-owners setting out how they will vote. That agreement is a contract between individuals: it binds the people who signed it, it does not bind a person who buys from one of them, and it is enforced by suing your co-owner.
A body corporate makes the constitution part of the asset. A person who acquires a position acquires it subject to the Agreement, whether or not they have read it, and the mechanism for a contested decision is a vote rather than a lawsuit.
Liability stops at the vehicle
A co-owner of a building is exposed to what happens at that building without limit. A partner in a Limited Liability Partnership is exposed to what they contributed. When a property carries a facility of several crore, that difference is the whole of the downside.
What it costs
Formation costs money and takes time. Every vehicle must file, be audited, and be administered, and that cost is real whether the property earns or not. It is paid from the administrative reserve.
It also means the position is a partnership interest rather than an interest in land, which changes its tax treatment and makes it harder to pledge to a lender. Those are genuine losses and they were accepted deliberately.
Where the exception lives
The Limited Liability Partnership is the default and a different structure needs Board approval for the specific property. That is written as a default with an exception rather than as a rule, because a rule with no exception gets broken quietly the first time it does not fit.