Justsaying – So your query is actually about how the matter of a legal expense and any resultant reimbursement arising from an insurance claim for that is shown on your Plan’s Accounts.
As a Chartered Engineer who used to know something about chemical manipulations as opposed to those of the accounting variety, I can only tell you how I would show that on our Plan’s Accounts, and that’s by showing the amount spent as what it is, in your case “legal costs” under Expenses, and the amount of any reimbursement as “insurance claim” under Income. The difference in the amounts would be calculated by readers (but not shown) as the Excess on the insurance claim.
The costs for the Strata Manager (we don’t have one) to “administrate” in the example you gave would I imagine be shown under “disbursements” on the Plan’s Accounts and not be included in the “Contract” (i.e. the Strata Management Agency Agreement).
Just a brief follow-up with regard to your O/C’s proceedings at the Tribunal. I’ve been down that road on 4 occasions and have never come across any legal people, including the Adjudicator, and so far as I’m aware legal or indeed any other “representation” for the Parties is actively discouraged.
So I don’t know why your O/C was represented at that stage of the proceedings, but I do know that save any ex-gratia or other discretionary arrangements, our Plan’s Insurance only covers a legal defense, involves a much higher Excess (x 5), and is only claimable if the Insurer’s been advised in advance of an intent to engage the lawyers AND they’ve been provided with a copy of the Minutes of an E/C or O/C Meeting that approved the expense IF that’s estimated to exceed the lesser of $12.5k or $1k/Lot as prescribed in the Act (in NSW).