Dudley – in general terms, some Strata Managers routinely add charges that may be relatively small in the context of a Plan’s overall expenses and therefore often slip-through unchallenged, but when taken in the context of the numbers of Plans under their management, those charges can be a quite lucrative income stream.
So good on you for getting into the detail!
Specifically, the charge that you refer to for “secure records destruction” is probably, as the title suggests, a fee for the proper disposal of the Owners Corporation’s records that exceeds the period that the Regulation requires that they be kept/archived (typically 5 years). Whilst I never cease to be amazed by the amount of hardcopy records that Strata Manager’s still generate and must therefore keep in this digital age, depending upon the amount of “paper” involved the Fee’s probably reasonable.
The charge for a “window safety compliance check” is interesting, as the Section of the Act that mandates that “compliance” doesn’t require child-proof window locks to be in place until March 2018. So whilst some checking of compliance after that date may be justifiable, a Fee 3 years out is probably just for income generation purposes.
Strata Managers can generate significant “supplementary income” from additional fees of the types that you’ve mentioned, but in fairness all such items and their applicable fees are required to be included in the Schedules (I think “D”) to the Strata Management Agency Agreement that the Strata Manager has with the Owners Corporation, so obtain a copy of that from them or from your Secretary and have a close look; you may be surprised!