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· The Motion Mash-Up: They’ve crammed the decision to have an ‘end of major defects warranty’ building inspection with the decision on which company to use all into one motion. It’s like asking “Should we get pizza and should it be from Dominos?” in a single breath. They need to be separate votes!
Agreed. If they change a motion after the agenda has been sent, they need to re-send the agenda to all owners. You cannot add a new motion to a meeting without all owners seeing it beforehand.
· The Wonky Voting Paper: The voting paper only has “YES” boxes next to each quote. No “NO” option. It’s generated by their software, apparently, and we’re just supposed to accept it. Because nothing says “democracy” like being unable to formally vote against something!
Draw a box and write the word “NO” next to it. Draw a tick inside the box.
· The Missing Info: They haven’t provided the scopes of work for the quotes. So owners are being asked to choose between a $1,500 inspection and a $4,750 one with zero idea of what they’re actually getting for their money. Super informed decision-making, right?
You could call the providers yourself and find out what the works entail. It should not be your job to do it.
But wait, there’s more! The real kicker is the new habit this manager has developed. At the end of his emails, he now includes this little gem:
“Please be advised that all correspondence is being recorded on the property file, which may have a negative impact if you wish to sell your property in the future.”
If a prospective buyer sees an engaged owner and an intransigent strata manager, they might run away. They are threatening you by saying you are revealing their incompetence.
Last September, my State MP held a “Strata Matter” forum with strata commissioner, Angus Abadee. He mentioned that there is not enough competition between strata insurers.
I have arranged strata insurance (as a self managed property) for several years without paying commission. The insurance company asks the same questions about the age of the building, condition, construction, swimming pools etc.
Thanks Jimmy. That’s a relief!
70 units in a block. 1/70 = 1.4% Your 10/1000 entitlement is less than 1/70th. That means some units have more than 1/70th entitlement. Possibly because they are bigger. The unit entitlement also determines how much levy you are asked to pay. The 10/1000 entitlement pays a lower levy than for example, 20/1000.
Admin fund: $1,500,000
Capital works fund: $30,000
If you really like this unit and it has a fantastic location, you should take a closer look at the finances. You need to see their budget, past transactions, insurance claims / premiums, levy payment history of the owners and their ten year capital works plan. Are there embedded networks? Otherwise, run.
If they have a debt of $1,500,000 and they have the same amount in their administrative fund, why don’t they pay off the debt AS FAST AS THEY CAN? Debt usually incurs interest. No one lends $1.5M without charging interest.
Or is this a debt where the interest charged is LESS THAN the interest earned (minus 30% tax) from the admin fund?
You need to look at their budget to find out how they spend their money from the administrative fund. Does this place have a lift, building manager, manicured gardens, swimming pool, gym, tennis court as a well as $1.5M debt to pay off? How many years will it take to pay off this debt?
The relatively tiny amount reserved for capital works is interesting. If you are an investment property owner, you can claim the administrative fund levy as an expense for income tax purposes. You cannot claim the capital works fund levy. Has someone made the administrative fund levy really high to help property investors get a bigger tax deduction?
The tiny capital works fund might also be the result of recent $1.5M capital works. They just have not had time to rebuild the fund. I worry that they don’t care about property maintenance. They leave everything to deteriorate until they can no longer ignore it and then take a massive loan to fix everything. If that is their attitude, you should run.
If there is an embedded network in this strata property, I would continue looking for something else.
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It would be best to ask a strata lawyer for advice. On this forum, everyone volunteers an answer and we try to be helpful. We are not lawyers. Your problem seems like an expensive one.
You need to determine what is common property and what is not common property. Every strata plan has a document called the registered plan. Your strata manager should have a copy of the registered plan. Otherwise, you can get it from the NSW government. By convention, thick black lines represent common property. Internal walls are usually not common property. My understanding is that waterproofing is common property.
Your problem is that the damage has extended to other parts of the villa. The definition of common property is not that the there is a common wall between the bathroom and the next room. It is usually the roof, floor, external walls, external windows, external doors, slab between floors, walls between lots. As I said, it is shown by thick black lines on the registered plan. Also, common property is not carpet, paint or wall paper. Those things are stuck onto common property but they are part of the lot.
Regarding training for strata committee members. If it is to be determined by the secretary and not described in the Strata Management Regulations, it does not sound like the government takes this seriously. A secretary may feel pressured to make the training as light as possible. Who is to say the secretary is qualified to determine a training program anyway?
It should be mandatory to join the FlatChat forum and read the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (or the equivalent in your jurisdiction).
Hello dianed
STRATA INSURANCE
I suggest bookmarking the “Strata Schemes Management Act 2015” for future reference. This is the law governing what goes on with strata properties, owners, strata managers, building managers, meetings etc.
Scroll down to “Schedule 1 Meeting procedures of owners corporations”
9 Additional matters to be include in notice of AGM
The following matters must also be included in, or accompany, the notice given of annual general meetings:
(d) particulars of each insurance policy taken out by the owners corporation (as required to be specified in the strata roll).
Now you have find out what is “required to be specified in the strata roll“.
To do this, scroll back up to section 178. (What I actually did was search for the character string “strata roll“.) Here is what it says:
Section 178 2 (d) particulars of insurance taken out by the owners corporation, including the following—
(i) the name of the insurance company,
(ii) the number of the insurance policy,
(iii) the nature of the risk insured,
(iv) the amount of the insurance,
(v) the due date for payment of the premium,
(vi) the date on which the premium was last paid,
STRATA MANAGER COMMISSIONS
Read this page Guide to strata law changes for strata committee members and owners.
Scroll down to Changes that started in February 2025. Strata managers now have increased disclosure obligations.I subscribed to the ‘Property Matters” newsletter. There is a subscribe button near the bottom of that page. More changes are on the way in 2026. Everyone on this forum should read that page and stay informed.
It is almost as if the strata manager knows the value of this information. Withholding it from the strata committee gives them power.
Are they at least providing you with a “quarterly cash management statement”? I used to get a list of financial transactions and lot position report every three months. For the Annual General Meeting, they are required to provide a “key finanical information statement”, balance sheet, lot position report, income and expenditure reports, budget for the next accounting period, capital works plan (every ten years), copy of insurance certificate.
Strata management agreement
Closely read the schedules of fees in the back of your strata management agreement. There might be something about how much it costs to retrieve information. There might also be a heading that says “hourly rates” followed by a list of job positions and dollar amounts.
Another way to get the strata roll is to knock on everyone’s door and politely ask who owns the place. Even if it is a tenant, they have a landlord / property manager.
NCAT applications
You can download the NCAT application form for “strata application”. It contains a long table of orders you can ask NCAT to make. It explains what you need to do before you submit the application. There are two “Orders about strata managing agents and buildings managers”. One is to terminate the strata management contract or make another order about an agreement. The other is to replace the strata manager with another strata manager of your choice.
Both NCAT orders require you to submit a copy of the strata roll. This would be difficult if the strata manager refuses to give it to you.
Hello WoodWalker
If this questions is still important to you, my self-managed system is run from non-strata specific software:
- Email on my computer
- Spreadsheet and wordprocessing software (Excel, Word, Google Sheets etc)
- Personal Finance Software (e.g. Quicken, MoneyDance)
- Cloud data storage (e.g. Google drive, Dropbox, OneDrive)
It took many hours to set it up. Now it is easy to send levy notices, create meeting agenda, minutes, financial reports. If you want to go cost free self-management, you have to be very organised and experienced with the abovementioned software.
OurBodyCorp
In the beginning, I tried OurBodyCorp for one year. I took the cheapest subscription (owner controlled). I discontinued the service because the owners did not use it.
Pros:
- Easy to use. Not much technical support beyond the initial setting up.
- All owners can login and see the state of the financial accounts.
- Levy notices easy to send: With the unit entitlement information, the system calculates the levies and sends invoices to all owners at the click of a button.
- Financial reporting: This system records every transaction. You can attach documents (invoices) to a transaction. There is a summary page showing how much is spent on each category.
- Meeting agenda / minutes can be set up. The minutes let me assign actions to people and check them off when they are done.
- Noticeboard for communicating news to all members.
- By-laws and other files could be saved.
Cons:
- If an owner has paid their levies before the next quarter started, I could not adjust the levy notice easily.
- I already had MoneyDance set up with the financial records. I found myself entering the same transaction twice: once for each system. Personal finance software lets me find out “how much did we spend on xxx over the past five years?”
- As a NSW owner, I need to have a ten year capital works plan and a “Key Financial Information Statement”. I still needed to use a spreadsheet.
- Printing the agenda / minutes. There was a lot of grey background. At the time, background printing could not be turned off on my printer. It wastes a lot of toner.
Since I had to use my own spreadsheet / personal finance software anyway, OurBodyCorp was only useful for owners, who wanted to view the accounts. Since none of them did, I ended the subscription.
STRATABOX
I trialled this product because it was advertised in FlatChat. I did not pay for it. The system was still in beta.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Geared for larger owners corporations.
- Seemed to be geared for documenting communications between owners, residents, strata committee, strata manager, building manager.
- Facility for logging an issue and keeping track of what is being done to resolve it.
- by-laws could be saved. Can’t remember if other documents could be saved.
- Could set up meeting agenda / minutes
Cons
No financial information could be recorded. It would be a deal breaker for me if I can’t send levy invoices and do the financial accounting.
In conclusion, the only system which met my needs was the one I created from a couple of spreadsheets, personal finance software and a word processor. If anyone is interested in self management, I could open a thread to talk about how I did it.
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If you have your own personal electricity account, go to the Australian Government’s energy made easy web site:
https://www.energymadeeasy.gov.au/
You need to have your electricity invoice at hand so that you can enter your NMI. That number is shown on your electricity invoice. The web site will ask a few questions about how long you lived there. It will go through your last twelve months of electricity usage and give you a list of electricity plans which you could consider.
I use this web site at least once a year to see if I am on the cheapest plan available. Be prepared to change electricity supplier if a cheaper plan is available.
As secretary of a strata plan, I have also entered the NMI of the strata plan’s electricity invoice to find a better plan. As stated earlier, if you are locked into a long term plan or your hot water heating is part of the strata’s electricity plan, you don’t have as many options.
Thanks Jimmy. As I noted in the thread about the Strata Matters forum, Property Commissioner Angus Abadee is well worth your readers’ attention.
I note that registration page states there are:
159 tickets available to OCN members (lunch included)
71 tickets available to non-OCN members (lunch included)
58 tickets available to online participants. I would have thought on-line audiences could be unlimited in size.
It is extremely difficult to fill doctor positions in regional areas because any doctor working in a regional town will discover they are the only doctor in town. There is no relief and no support. It is very stressful. Also, if they want to train for a specialty, they need to be on a training programme and supervised. That’s mostly done in city-based hospitals.
If a foreign trained doctor comes to Australia, they have to get their qualifications recognised in Australia. If Australia does not recognise their qualification, they can sit the Australian Medical Council examinations. If they pass, they get provisional registration. They can work in a supervised environment. After completing supervised practice, they get general registration. They would probably choose to work in the city too.
I am one of your 300 podcast listeners. I have enjoyed listening to your podcasts whilst driving or pottering around at home. I totally understand you need a bigger audience to keep going. Every strata owner should be subscribed.
The AI voice of Jimmy sounded less animated than in real life. It made me think that Jimmy was on valium if he had actually made that recording.
The AI voice of Sue seemed more realistic. They snipped her “Absolutely!” and threw that in a few times.
I have a serious problem with a neighbor using CCTV cameras that are all around the property.not sure if he got permission to install these camerasTwo NCAT cases handled by the same Senior Member documented here:You cannot alter the external appearance of common property without having the approval of the owners corporation.