Since my last post I have done quite a lot of research on this fee.
After a delay the Strata manager of our scheme provided a copy of the letter from PICA (who own a large number of strata management agencies) which basically says that they are charging owners corporations for the cost of them upgrading their systems to comply with the new legislation. They imply that the agency agreement allows them to charge this fee and it will be “included in your next financial statement”. No approval required. A legal opinion of the agency agreements appears to consider this is no legal.
The PICA website states they have over 220,000 lots under management. I will let you do the maths on how much revenue this will generate. The management of financial records for schemes is just the beginning of what is planned and when they confirm the system works they plan is to try and on sell to unaffiliated companies.
The secretary of our scheme only “vaguely recalled” receiving the letter and felt the cost would result in “economies of scale” (whatever he thinks that means).
Does no one query what our strata managers are billing us for? The only people who see this correspondence are committee members.
Would mere mortals who are just owners object if they were aware of this fee?