It’s funny – our levies are pretty high, we put them up a few years ago to make provision for a lot of work that needs to be done, and we have been spending the money on a number of those works – we don’t have a huge balance in the sinking fund although it is not small (we have quite a bit more work to do). This included one project that cost about $140K. We also raised a special levy that was relatively low to fund that project.
Two apartments in our scheme sold this year and a real estate agent suggested to one of the owners that our levies were putting people off, because the levies at other blocks were lower. He even suggested that someone might be embezzling the funds. Now obviously they don’t live here, but all you need to do is look around to see that work needs to be done. And if you look at the records you can see the work that has been completed. You can’t compare other blocks because they are completely different.
If I were looking at buying an apartment, I would rather the OC were budgeting appropriately, rather than keeping their fingers crossed and then hitting everyone with a special levy. But that is not how everyone sees it.