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  • #52897
    Confused_Noob
    Flatchatter

      Hi,
      we’ve been owners of a strata managed property in NSW, for 8 years. We’ve never had much of an issue and always paid our levies on time.

      Our recent levy notice was sent/printed on the 7th of October, 1 day after our AGM. We received it on the 14th and had till the 18fh to pay.

      Unfortunately, my mother passed away on the 15th and I didn’t get around to paying the levy until October 20.
      We’ve heard from another owner that he was sent a penalty notice for being a day overdue. He never receive an overdue notice either.
      Our questions are:

      Are Stratas allowed to immediately penalize without sending an overdue notice first?

      And

      Does a Strata have to allow a set amount of days for notices to arrive by snail mail (especially now that Covid-19 has slowed down letter deliveries)? We don’t get our notices emailed to us.

      How many days should an owner legally be given, to pay their levies?

      If the Strata sent the notice on the date it was printed, and it was posted before 3pm, it gave us 10 days to pay and that’s with delivery days and 2 weekends included.

      We’re worried that we will be penalized. The levy notice states that a penalty of 10% per annum will be charged if not paid by the due date.

      We did write to the manager, to explain our circumstances and why we were 2 days late, but we received no reply.

      We will pay the penalty, as it’s peanuts. But my husband was wondering if we will be penalized immediately or if we should receive an overdue notice first.

      He’s also a bit cranky with the very short time we had to pay the levies. All our other bills usually come with a 21 day payment period.

       

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    • #52904
      Jimmy-T
      Keymaster

        OK, first of all,  look here to read most of what you need to know about levies in NSW.

        The most important thing to note is that you can’t be charged penalty interest until you are in arrears for more than one month, so a couple of days isn’t going to make much difference.

        Different strata managers have their own processes but it does seem on the face of it to that this has been a very rushed business and you are entitled to (politely) ask why.

        In fact, Section 83(3) of the Act says this.

         Any contribution levied by an owners corporation becomes due and payable to the owners corporation on the date set out in the notice of the contribution. The date must be at least 30 days after the notice is given.

        However, Section 83 (4) says this:

        (4)  Regular periodic contributions to the administrative fund and capital works fund of an owners corporation are taken to have been duly levied on an owner of a lot even though notice levying the contributions was not given to the owner.

        So it’s far from clear cut. How can you be charged for notices not given?  Well, there is a knowledge and expectation that you will pay the levies regularly and, in the absence of levies notices, it’s up to you to discover when and how much.  I’d imagine this is to deal with the “I never got the notice” excuse by late payers.

        As far as overdue notices goes, in extreme cases where the owners corp want to pursue owners for a large debt, then you’d expect a full set of levies notices, overdue warnings and penalty notices, so it’s bad management if they aren’t sending these out.

        That said, penalty charges are obligatory unless a general meeting agrees to waive them.

         

        :

        The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
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