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Does anyone have experience with Strata Managers charging ridiculous amounts for “Photocopying” of documents? We get charged 6k a year for the photocopying of notices and minutes of strata meetings. The thing is, the cost to get what I would estimate is 5000 pages max printed at officeworks is $450. Now I get that there is labour involved, but how much is involved in hitting a button.
Unfortunately going digital got voted down at the last meeting and I don’t see it getting through our largely luddite committee, so maybe this is venting but I am genuinely interested in hearing from any strata managers on how they could justify this expense in the first place.
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It’s impossible for us to say what you’re paying is unfair or otherwise, but what you are looking at is the growing issue of Schedule B costs – the ancillary charges that strata managers can impose, depending on the terms of your contracts with them.
These days, most strata managers will offer a service for a basic fee plus Schedule B charges. Some are pretty fair with the charges – using them to make sure they aren’t doing too much unpaid work – while others see this as an almost limitless source of revenue (and advertise for new agents on that basis).
The easiest way to check is to call up other strata managers in your area and ask how much they would charge for the same work. If your strata manager is unreasonable, then that’s something to consider when their contract comes up for renewal.
And maybe you should propose to your next agm that owners who insist on “dead tree” notices should pay for them, while electronic is free.
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Have to say, we have the same annoyance here too. Only 12 units here, and half of us accept notices by email but the printing cost exceeds $1k per year. You could ask them to itemise it in more detail but if they even agreed to do that, they would then charge you for the time of coming up with (making up?) those details … and it might still be difficult to assess.
Probably worth challenging them by asking how the figure was arrived at. At least they will know you’re watching them?