 Let's jump straight in and talk. What exactly is co-ownership and what does it entail? My name is Dumi and I am your host for tonight. This podcast focuses on everything and anything property. We talk about investing, buying, selling and overall growing your property portfolio. So if that sounds like something you are interested in, do stay tuned. This is the best time to share the link of this live with friends, family and anybody you think will benefit from the conversation tonight. Tonight we are talking about all things you need to know about property co-ownership and I've got Coco Sebella from Leaping Frog Properties. He's going to be talking to us about the things that you can do, the tips, the tricks and really just advising us on how you can go about property co-ownerships. Coco, good evening. Good evening to me. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Tonight we're talking property co-ownership and we believe you are the best in the industry to talk to us about this. So let's jump straight in and talk. What exactly is property co-ownership and what does it entail? Property co-ownership is when two or more people agree to own a property together. Typically it happens in a marriage but of late you find the younger people coming together to buy properties. Sometimes even colleagues or family members coming together to buy a property together in order to alleviate costs and get their food hold into the property market. As you said, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Great. So as you said, traditionally we knew marriages or people who are in a marriage setting to go into property co-ownership. Is it any different when people are in a marriage to when there is more than just two people? What are the intricate details that change it from just being a co-funded property to something to it being like having multiple owners? Look, the main drive was as indicated that to get a food hold into the industry. But essentially it means people coming together to own a property. They don't particularly own a section or a portion of the property but they could have marriages depending on the agreement that they entered into. And there's normally a co-ownership agreement that one would advise people who intend buying property together get into and really outline the details of what would be entailed in the co-ownership. Like say in a townhouse complex where you decide to buy a plant together. You know, there'd be levies, there'd be raids in Texas. So those need to be stipulated before deciding to buy a property together. Like details as to whether the property will be led or whether one of the co-owners will be occupying the property. We'll have to go into that co-ownership agreement. But yeah, essentially it's when multiple people decide to own a property together. Okay. And we were just talking about that because when we're talking about the utilities and talking about the levies, is there a standard agreement that can be found or does the agreement solely depend on the people who are owning it or the people who are deciding to go into this partnership? Look, it mainly depends on the people who are going into that co-op property ownership. But even if there isn't an agreement in place, you know, the law presumes that the co-owners have equal shares in the property. If there's two of them, then it would be 50-50. If there's three of them, then it would be 33% and then a third and so on and so forth. All right, let's talk a little bit more also on the disadvantages of this. And advantages you touched on one or two. So you can maybe delve deeper into that if there are any more advantages that exist into co-ownership because it's something that seems very lucrative, but probably has disadvantages that people should be aware of before they go into such an agreement. So can you talk to us maybe about the disadvantages and advantages thereof? Look, maybe just to add on to the advantages, one of the main advantages is share cost. But if you have to go into the cons, one name, you know, if there's multiple owners, you know, decision-making may take a while as you have to go around all the co-owners before making a decision. Say, maybe there's maintenance that needs to be made, or maybe you need to sell, you know, you have to be in agreement with everyone, you know, on every decision that you make. And look at other disadvantages, say, maybe one of the co-owners can no longer keep up, you know, with the maintenance requirements, say, in terms of funds or maybe they lose their job, you know, or maybe generally you find yourself in a co-ownership with somebody who's just difficult to own a property with, you know, those could be some of the co-owners. And what does one do? You know, you just mentioned one that raised my eyebrows, you know, when you are dealing with somebody who's already extremely difficult and maybe situations or just the circumstances make the person out to be that way. Are there any clauses that protect each owner, or do these have to be built in by themselves, or are there things that protect each owner to ensure that at least people's interests are protected? Look, your starting point is in that co-ownership agreement, where you need to stipulate all the eventualities, you know, certain things are certain in life, like death is one of those. Those need to be stipulated. Maybe after one of the co-owners passes on, the remaining partner might want to keep the property, or maybe one might want them to sell, and you know, maybe the process of the owner that's passed on carry on into the estate. But yeah, the main thing that is to remedy would be through mediation. And mediation is mainly based on reasonable and fairness, you know. And if the parties fail to agree, ultimately, you know, mediation may require that the property be sold, and the shares be distributed equitably. Thank you for that. You spoke, you're speaking about mediation now, and my next question is, who facilitates this process? Because normally we normally have just the lawyers that are involved in us facilitating the buying and the selling of a property. So are they separate to the people who will be helping us to acquire the property? Should this happen outside of the buying and selling process? Or is this something that can be factored in when we are buying or selling a property? Look, there isn't like really a body that really is designated to deal with co-property ownership. But there's, you know, mediation through your estate agency at Facebook, which sets up such mediation where there's disagreement. But if there really mediation doesn't really prevail, then it will ultimately lead to litigation. You know, it's a risk that one takes when you're going to co-property ownership, because you never know how the future will play out, you know. But ultimately, it ends in the concept, you know, is the last result that one want to explore. No, it definitely does. We spoke a little bit about the kinds of property. Does this, does this apply to all kinds of property? Can all property be bought in this way and managed in this way? Or are they specific categories? Certainly, all kinds of properties can be co-owned from commercial to residential, from rural to urban, you know, block of flats. You know, I know of youngsters who started, you know, a group of youngsters, say four youngsters come together just getting into the job space. You know, they started with one tunnel and eventually end up co-owning 20 tunnels, you know, in the northern suburb just from building one, you know, from one property and getting their food loaded. So yeah, no, no, no properties are off limits, you know. If you will it, you can do it. Sure. I would just like to leech on to, to that story that you're about to say, to say, just talk us through how this would potentially look, how, how we would look specifically when it's a group of people who have come together and are leasing a property. What are the steps that they would need to go through? What are the finer details? You know, I'm, I'm, I'm considering or I'm thinking about somebody who's watching this and who might possibly want to go into this. What advice would you give them to say, this is how it would look? This is particularly the things that you should look out for. Look ideally, if you come together maybe as colleagues or as friends, you'd want to set up a trust, you know, with all the, the partners names registered in the trust. And you'd want to make sure that you vet all the partners that are going to be in the trust, you know, if they've got the regular income, if they'd be able to keep up with the maintenance of the properties as the portfolio increases. So it's almost like a stock firm, but you do it in a formal fashion, you know, you set up a trust and you have a co property ownership agreement on the backdrop of it. And then you build them from there. Oh, nice. You know, it's, you said something, then you said property stock fell and I remember hearing a lot of this off late where people are talking about these things and I engaging in them a lot. If you just joined us, we are talking all things you need to know about co property ownership or property co ownership. And I would just like to thank our stars as usual on social media who are coming through Matha, Polina and Tashi. Thank you so much. Colleen Janssen. Good evening. And thank you so much guys for joining us and for always coming through and dropping those green hearts and engaging in the comments section. You know, my my my biggest question right now about this is to say this the the co property ownership. Does it is it as lucrative as it looks or are they major downfalls? And when I mean major downfalls in terms of the exiting out or someone leaving in the in the in the agreement that was stipulated in the beginning, does this mean that we need to now look for somebody to replace them? Or how do we how do we look at those instances where now the person that or the initial group that was joined in is not is now no longer able to continue with the agreement that's stipulated. Look lucrative definitely can be, you know, it just depends on how the partnership is structured. You know, obviously, if you have too many co owners, the less profits you derive from that co property ownership. But with regards to maybe terminating the co ownership agreement or the exit plus, as you call it, you know, I refer back to the co ownership agreement. It's important that you have a co ownership agreement with all those details in place that, you know, trying to plan for every any eventual scenario, you know, like one wanting to exit costs, you know, life happens, you find that some get married and their partners don't want them to be involved in co property ownership. So there should be there should be clauses in place that, you know, guide us to what happens then. If maybe the other partner can buy the other partner or if maybe then they go out to market and source a partner to replace that partner, or if then maybe then they agree that, okay, if one wants to opt out, then they sign, you know, but yeah, it definitely can be lucrative. And there's also downsides, you know, if you decide to co own property in an area that's not so lucrative, you know, that actually maybe is on a downward spiral. And when the co owners bought, you know, they didn't really do the background or do the due diligence on the area that they're buying, you know, so that's why it's very key that before entering into any sort of agreement that you do, you do your homework, you know, cross all the T's and dot the I's in terms of researching the area that you're going to market trends in the area, what sort of people are buying, will you be able to attract tenants, you know, yeah, so all goes back to the co ownership agreement so that, you know, if there's any pitfalls, they can be remedied by the co ownership agreement. I love the fact that we're really talking about this co ownership agreement, because it seems like it is the it will be the bible that really governs this relationship that's going to happen. And I would like to now ask that outside of the the co ownership agreement, what other things should we look out for, because we are now think we are now looking at stuff like you own a property, you know, there's there's municipal rates, taxes, levies in the complex, and they might be other things like maintenance and just the other day we were talking about how to winter proof a home, you know, approaching winter. So with things like that, that that may not at the time sit in the in the agreement that was made initially, how do we then solve for those outside factors? Look, co ownership agreements are based on reasonableness and fairness, you know. And if the co ownership agreement stipulates that all you have to chip in when, you know, maintenance comes up, you know, within reason, of course, you might find that one partner thinks it's too early to do maintenance. And one thing that we really need to do maintenance to maintain that key. But it always goes back to reasonableness and fairness and detailing those inventurities in the agreement. You will find like saying the townhouse complex again, you find the raise especially, you know, which the corners don't really have to say because it will be based on the general consensus of the owners in the complex that it's time it's due. So if you have somebody as a corner that really doesn't agree with you on such things, then it makes co ownership really, really difficult where you find yourself where there's really no remedies either than to opt out of the document. But yeah, goes back to, you know, stipulating any finite details, like as to maintenance, because maintenance, you know, it's something that's bound to happen. You know, painting every number of years, you know, maintains the value and the active of the property. So those details should be talked about and signed on prior to going into a corner ship agreement. Sure. Thank you so much, Skoko, for giving us your time and giving us such great insights for us to be able to make decisions and ultimately attempt to grow our property portfolios. Thank you so much and have a good evening. Thank you. Thank you so much. So that was about it around co property ownership. So if you are looking at owning a property or increasing and growing your, your, your, your property portfolio, this may be the way to go. But before you do that, ensure that that that co ownership property agreement is in check, make sure you vet the people that you're going to go into that agreement with. And as, as our guest said, it is like going into a marriage, just make sure that you're going in with the right person who will be able to honor their agreement and ultimately help you to make those decisions. The reason why we would go into it into something like this is to create and to create the legacy and grow our portfolio. So let us ensure that it does exactly that. Thank you so much for joining us tonight for tonight's episode. It has been an absolute pleasure. And if you were also joining us on the Twitter spaces, thank you so much. All right here on Facebook, do ensure that you have a good evening and we shall see you same time, same place right here on the private property podcast.