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Hi,
Can anyone point me to a comparison of Strata levies for similar facilities and geographic locations. Clearly contributions to sinking funds might vary considerable depending on building age, conditions, facilities etc.
I was hoping to be able to compare the levies in our inner city, 23 level, building with other buildings having similar facilities (eg. no pool, no gym, two lifts, two bedrooms).
Some of our residents believe our levies are low, others think it is high (and we are inefficient), given we have virtually no facilities (aside from two lifts) our levies (not including sinking fund), are around $8000pa on the lowest levels and $12000pa on the higher levels.
We would like to determine if our building is being run efficiently or not.
Thanks.
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There is no comparison data available … but there should be.
However, given your description, I would say that your residents’ ANNUAL levies should be between 0.7 and 1 percent of the value of their property.
Hope that helps.
Meanwhile, maybe we will make that a flat chat project for next year. Watch this space (as I probably say way too often).
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JC,
I suggest a few things:
Ask your manager what levies are in similar buildings. You might get a helpful answer. Ask your neighbours to ask all their friends if they are in similar buildings and collate the results.
Look at your budget. Do certain items stand out as major expenses? If so, ask why those in particular are such a large fraction of the budget.
Is a lot going into your sinking fund? If so, that might be reasonable if it had been run down too low previously. Is there a sinking fund plan? There should be and it will show anticipated maintenance for which the cost is being spread over time. If levies are high it might be that you have a responsible EC making sure important maintenance will happen.
When making comparisons be aware of quirks of your building that might account for a difference from an apparently similar building. EG. Our development was built at the same time in similar style by the same architect in the same city to another. Our levies are distinctly lower than theirs. The difference is because they are catching up their sinking fund and their fund has to cover more than ours. We are lucky that much of our utility conduits (sewer, water etc) are in easements and not our responsibility to maintain so we didn’t need to have provisions for certain major repairs that the other development has had.