[nojay]

Thanks to you both.

To clarify: Our Owners Corp has always had 10-year Cap Works Plans professionally drafted. Those Plans established a schedule for annual Levies and an annual spend that maintained a healthy balance at all times. Our current Committee, however, continually ‘resets’ the Cap Works Plan by ordering maintenance work without any reference to the Plan. I understand the Plan needs to be flexible but our Committee in recent years has never explained to our AGM what maintenance work it intends to have carried out in the course of the upcoming year – or explain why other work scheduled in the 10-year plan has been deferred. We have a very healthy balance in the Cap Works Fund only because a lot of the work scheduled in the 10-year Plan has never taken place.

As noted in my original post, our current Committee produces ridiculous ‘Budgets’ for work that will never take place and then proposes wildly fluctuating Cap Works Levies to suit, again without reference to the 10-year Plan. The Committee then decides maintenance matters on an ad hoc basis at their meetings. No one has any faith that the Committee members know what they are doing but they form a voting block at the AGM and get reelected.

Surely, the intention of the SSM Act is for each AGM to agree the Cap Works that should be carried out IN THE FORTHCOMING YEAR (before the next AGM) and agree the BUDGET JUST FOR THOSE ITEMS? (As part of that process, the Committee has to confirm the proposed annual spend is within the capacity of the 10-year Plan and the proposed Levy is in line with that Plan.)

How can we get our Committee to produce a REALISTIC BUDGET FOR ANNUAL CAP WORKS at an AGM instead of the fantasy schedule we have been given (which no one believes will, or should, happen) and a Levy that is set arbitrarily?

Is it enough to quote Section 79 of the SSM Act?

[nojay]

Thanks for that advice. It’s yet another example of a lack of transparency that SSM Act allows Committees and Strata Managers to get away with.

If the Minutes of a Committee Meeting don’t properly record that a Committee obtained then reviewed multiple insurance quotes – as Section 166 requires – the Owners have no way of knowing the procedure has been followed unless someone formally ask for some evidence.  (The Minutes of our Strata Committee are notorious for being appallingly brief and imprecise.)

Thanks again.

[nojay]

I agree with the comments of both Alley Cat and Cosmo. 

Has anyone else had to go though the process we had to when appointing a new Building Manager i.e. at great expense appoint lawyers to draft both a formal tender document and ultimately a contract but with ‘Duties and Responsibilities’ that they left largely to the Exec Committee to work out themselves. Why isn’t there a reference document readily available SOMEWHERE that has a standard checklist of duties / responsibilities for both a Strata Manager and a Building Manager (complementary roles).

It seems crazy that each OC has to re-invent the wheel on this. I’d have thought by now the Dept Fair Trading could have drafted standard contracts for the appointment of both the Strata Manager and the Building Manager which referenced standard checklists for duties etc.   

Am I being too cynical in thinking the legal profession sees this as being too good a thing to give away and likes to keep it for themselves? 

[Author]

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