- This topic has 6 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 6 months, 4 weeks ago by .
-
Topic
-
I am writing to you in relation to the usual Strata Manager claim that, not only are they entitled to direct-debit their fees and charges for agreed and additional services but also that they are not obliged to submit Tax Invoices to either the Strata Committee or the Owners Corporation for prior approval or authorisation before direct-debiting payment.
Can you please assist in resolving this issue and also pointing out the relevant provisions in the standard Strata Managing Agency Agreement upon which Strata Managers rely in taking this action and rejecting any suggestion or obligation to submit Tax Invoices for approval on the one hand and to direct-debit payment for Tax Invoices without the authority and approval of the Strata Committee or the Owners Corporation on the other. I have now experienced numerous incidents where Strata Managers have incurred and paid debts without authority and/or direct-debited payments without recourse to the Strata Committee or Owners Corporation to find later that the Tax Invoice or the amount is disputed and its payment should never have been made and would have been rejected for genuine reasons had the Strata Manager sought prior approval.
I am keen to achieve results & information as to the outcomes & expectations of other strata users with difficult & obstinate Strata Managers who refuse to follow & observe this procedure. Surely they should not be legally or contractually entitled to direct-debit until the Strata Committee or the Owners Corporation authorises & approves payment of sighted Tax Invoices.
-
Replies
-
Given the recent example of a Strata Manager extracting ~$2 million from ~60 stratas over ~400 transactions, I looked at our portal and noticed that it DOES NOT show a scan of the original Tax Invoice. We see only the date, payee, and the amount and date we paid it. We are pretty sure that the amount paid is the same as the amount payable on the tax invoice … but it would be nice to confirm this.
The StrataMax portal (used by our Strata Manager) has an Invoice Approval Hub (this option is NOT turned on by our Strata Manager), allowing committee members to see the Tax Invoices and approve payments. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS5OQFTv8Dw&t=70s
Does anyone have positive or negative experiences of viewing the Tax Invoices before the SM makes the payment? Does your portal show the Tax Invoices?
Some strata schemes, in an effort to make it easier for inconsequential bills to be paid but keep a tight rein on finances, put a limit on the amount their strata managers can spend without prior approval.
And, believe it or not, schemes that set the limit at, say, $300 are often astonished to discover how many services cost $295.
If you want to be alerted when anyone replies to your posts or responds to this topic, please register and login, then you will be able to subscribe to the topic. The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers. NB: Longer threads may spill over to additional pages - look for the numbers on the bottom right, under the last post.
Given the recent example of a Strata Manager extracting ~$2 million from ~60 stratas over ~400 transactions, I looked at our portal
Just to let you know, I merged two similar threads here. JimmyT
If you want to be alerted when anyone replies to your posts or responds to this topic, please register and login, then you will be able to subscribe to the topic. The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers. NB: Longer threads may spill over to additional pages - look for the numbers on the bottom right, under the last post.
. We see only the date, payee, and the amount and date we paid it
I am in Victoria. We have a web portal – we only see a one-line entry – which is the accumulation of receipts for a particular category – in the AGM agenda- nothing throughout the year.
I am in Victoria. We have a web portal – we only see a one-line entry – which is the accumulation of receipts for a particular category – in the AGM agenda- nothing throughout the year.
Several years ago, we had a Strata Manager who provided no financial information to owners other than a Word table with one line entry for each category e.g. “gardening” at the AGM.
When we asked for more detail about OUR finances in the AGM, they said it would take many hours to generate, and they would bill us (an undisclosed amount) for this as an additional charge.
The AGM elected a more engaged committee who then sent a email asking for a ledger of all transactions (and quoting enough of the legislation to show that we knew what we were talking about). The Strata Manager responded by terminating the contract with 7 days notice and a statement that no correspondence would be entered into. Several months later, the new strata manager sent us a bank statement showing all transactions. This revealed several charges which we were unaware of.
An engaged committee should be aware of the financial operation of the owners’ corporation. It is OUR money and OUR information.
How many committees approve payments without seeing a scan of the Tax Invoice?
Take care out there,
Woodwalker (in the ACT)We’ve caught ours out once or twice charging us for a service that we voted at the AGM not to pay for. (Eg an annual audit, which is not always required for our small scheme). When challenged, the fee was reversed. Maybe it was intended for a different strata scheme and was inadvertently charged to us. We’ll never know. We do have access to tax invoices and I check the quarterly statements fairly carefully. Invoices are loaded onto our portal so I could do a reconciliation between that and the statement, but I don’t. I’m more inclined to do a “reasonableness check” of the statement. But we must be getting close to the day when I can use an AI tool to compare the invoices on the portal to the charges on the statement. And the AI tools already available should help strata managers to provide more detail with minimal extra effort.