- This topic has 3 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 5 months ago by .
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Topic
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My husband and I purchased our very first property last year – a 3br apartment in a newly built apartment building with total 48 units.
In the first general meeting, 5 owners volunteered to be on the Committee. About 15 owners attended the meeting and many of them were foreigners or first home buyers. Most of us ( including my husband and I ) did not understand the role of the committee and we simply approved.
5 committee members, building manager, strata manager, and 4 owners attended the first general meeting (including my husband and I). I learned that other than the chairman (own a 2br) and the rest of the comittee members are studio or 1br owners. In regards to some issues, they kept saying owners with 3 br should pay more on this or that matter. Isn’t the levy we paid in related to the size of our apartment? We are paying more.
And in the meeting, I learnt that the room they held the general meeting cost 500 dollars to book. It was a private room in an expensive restaurant next to our building. And the committee members ordered at least 4 bottles of wine and food. They said for sharing but I noticed none of the other owners attending the meeting drank or ate any. After the meeting, an owner said to me that she felt like taking advantage of others if she drank or ate.
This meeting cost nearly 800 dollars and it was paid by strata money. Basically all generally meetings are held in this room, and most of time no more than 5 owners attend these meetings. Is it reasonable that they drink and eat at all the owners’ expenses and most of the owners have no idea about it?
And I can’t help thinking what it’s like when they have commitee meeting. Are they spending our levys on food and drinks in expensive restaurant?
As a first home owner, I’m so confused about all these strata and commitee thingy. Is it perfectly normal that general meeting being held in an expensive restaurant plus food and drinks are consumed at all owners’ expenses? Where is general meeting usually held in your building?
Any answer to my questions is appreciated.
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Until a few years ago we paid only $100 to hire a room at a local club for meetings. A few people bought drinks for themselves. Recently the club bumped up the price to several hundred dollars and also made purchase of minimum amount of food and drink a condition of room hire. We would have been hard-pressed to spend less than $500.
Last year we approached a local bar which was normally closed on a particular week night. The opened for free and we (the committee) agreed to spend about $250 on their rather nice selection of bar snacks that the OC would otherwise have paid for room hire. People bought their own drinks. The snacks were passed around and popular. We had hoped that we would spend no more than we would have needed to spend at the club but create a more pleasant atmosphere.
I would say it was a partial success but I think the bar owner will be less keen to repeat it. I do not think we spent enough to make it worthwhile for him to open up.
It might be that your committee has experienced the same trend and they were actually about as economical as they could be. Perhaps you could ask? If they relate an experience like mine, perhaps suggest that they could make it more explicit in the meeting notice that they are hoping to create a more welcoming environment to encourage more owners to attend the AGM and that the room is about as cheap as they could manage to hire.
BTW. When you say ‘all general meetings are held in this room’, do you mean just the Annual General Meeting or do you have more frequent general meetings or do you actually mean the committee meetings? Being a bit posher in a bigger room for the AGM could be reasonable. Committee meetings could be in committee members units. When I have been on our committee, we have always met in committee members’ units, whoever was willing to host but generally not those committee members with a partner trying to get children to bed at the same time. For committee meetings, quite often somebody would bring some wine and/or snacks to share. This was not charged to the owners corporation.
@Wendy said:
Isn’t the levy we paid in related to the size of our apartment? We are paying more.It’s related to your unit entitlement. Go to the appropriate state government body & educate yourself about how strata works in your neck of the woods. In NSW that’s Fair Trading:
https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/ftw/Tenants_and_home_owners/Strata_schemes.page?
@Wendy said:Is it perfectly normal that general meeting being held in an expensive restaurant plus food and drinks are consumed at all owners’ expenses? Where is generalmeeting usually held in your building?
We’re lucky enough to have a common area meeting room large enough for AGMs. Our Strata Committee (SC) meets in the same room.
Our SC/AG meetings are open to any owner – we are delighted when they overcome the apathy barrier & show up. Nibbles, wine & water are available to meeting attendees. Our Chair buys the supplies.
We have an annual SC dinner in appreciation for the immense amount of work our SC members perform. This is held in a restaurant & it’s informal. Partners are invited.
We have an annual Xmas party for all residents just because. It’s very well attended & appreciated. The budget is normally around $2K.
Our sub committees meet in individual apartments, coffee shop or our building manager’s office if people need to phone in.
That’s the extent of our largesse. We try to plot a reasonable course: neither spendthrift or miserly. We’re a large scheme in NSW (~350 lots).
We are a scheme of 245 lots and most times have access to a ‘function’ room, at no cost, which is in another part of our estate.
However, several times the room has not been available and we have held general meetings (60-70 attendees) in our gardens, or in the visitor carpark (areas roped off). We own our own portable tables and chairs.
Attendees often bring food and drink to share.
There is no way, our scheme would book a restaurant or pay for the hire of a room so we have had to be inventive. The carpark looked very nice one time when it was close to xmas.
Committee meetings are usually held in the gardens or if raining we squeeze into building management office where the first four arrivals get a seat and the rest stand.
Committee is also getting better at skype conferencing.