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We recently had an expense on the monthly reports submitted by the SM for “Production of six monthly reports for records”. It was only for $30 but it had not appeared previously during my time on the EC.
When queried she advised that they had to print off interim reports every 6 months and file them.
As indicated above it is not a lot of money but it seems strange that they need print off their own records and file them.
I am concerned this SM is trying get as much as they can out of us. Can anyone provide any guidance on this?
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Ask the strata manager for a copy and check the Strata Management Agency Agreement; Schedules A1, A2, and Schedules B, C, D for additional services and charges. Some agreements also include attachments apart from the above. If details of this service are not there ask for further information from the strata manager. If the response is unsatisfactory contact an Executive Committee member or raise it at the next Executive Committee meeting or AGM.They probably charged the printing costs to print the report as a disbursement also. All of this would likely have been noted as additional fees and charges in your agency agreement despite them maybe not charging for the services previously.
Having said that Strata Managers are in the industry to make money and this is one of the ways they do so i.e. Win your business with lower standard fees and hit you with additional monthly charges which you have no comeback for.
Owners Corporations really need to insist on full transparency and the best way to do this is ask for fixed disbursement fees or one all encompassing management fee and when tendering for management services insist that everyone quotes like for like.
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