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We bought an industrial/commercial unit in Sydney in mid 2011. At our recent AGM we found out there will be a special levy imposed to pay for the accumulated common area electricity bills unpaid since 2009. There was no accrual of money from the owners back then by the strata management to pay for it because the bill went to the wrong address and now we are expected to pay for a debt that was created years before we assumed ownership. Is this right or should we only be required to pay pro rata for the unpaid electricity that was incurred after we bought the unit in 2011? What can we do about it? At the AGM we were unable to vote because of a small amount owing on our strata levy which we knew nothing about after being advised by phone by the strata agency that our strata levies were up-to-date.
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The owners corporation is responsible to pay its electricity account and you are a member of that OC so you are liable in proportion to your unit entitlements. I’m afraid this one is just bad luck for you. Similarly, if the OC has some expensive maintenance required and has not accumulated sufficient in its sinking fund you will be up for that too, even though most of the accumulated wear and tear may have taken place over the past decade or more. Ideally an OC anticipates such things in a sinking fund plan and has sufficient reserves for some unanticipated contingencies. This way the cost of one-off expenses is spread across multiple years and past, present and future owners.
What seems odd is that each year I would have expected the OC would have passed a budget that included an amount for electricity and each year someone (treasurer, EC members, manager, ordinary owners) should have noticed that nothing was spent on electricity yet the lights were still on.