- This topic has 5 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 7 months ago by .
-
Topic
-
I have access to the Community Hub for as an owner. But not on the S C/tee. I have been trying to access financial information, ie, individual invoices paid….Work orders sent. etc. The Strata Management have advised me that I am not entitled to access this information through the portal. (only C/tee members). I can submit a query to SM for a particular item of interest, but it is overall information I want to keep on top of This doesn’t seem quite right to me, as an owner I assumed this was one of the more useful sources of information any owner could access . The Strata C/tee doesn’t hold meetings or send out information, so difficult to keep up with what is occuring—especially with maintenance etc. It is a small block of 12.
-
Replies
-
What is the Community Hub? Is it like a website or online resource for the strata scheme?
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.
What is the Community Hub? Is it like a website or online resource for the strata scheme?
Our managing agent operates a web site called ‘My Community’, which I presume is software licenced by managing agents. Owners can log in to see documents such as past newsletters, committee minutes etc. It has a chat forum thing called ‘Community Wall’ where people can ask questions or post comments and the committee or managing agent might post announcements. It is also where one can see one’s personal account for levy payments. It shows all owners a high level overall financial position for the Owners Corporation. Financial details such as each individual units’ credit or arrears or every payment for goods and services are only visible to logged-in committee members.
Good day Hyacinth,
Welcome to my world. I have exactly the same issues as you have: being an owner but not on the committee and being denied information. And in my case, I discovered payments being made that were not approved by the OC as they should have been.
After some argy-bargy with the committee and the managing agent, I recalled what I learned in first year accounting: two vital documents which every managing agent or committee treasurer have in their possession: the Cash Payments Journal and Cash Receipts Journal. These are listings of every single payment made by and receipt deposited into the strata’s accounts.
Note: this does not include actual invoices, it is a list of money in and out of the strata’s bank account. And in my case and in that of a friend’s, in another strata, the listing does not reveal who was paid or who paid into the strata.
That said, I suggest you ask for the following:
Dear Managing Agent,
Please email me the Cash Payments and Cash Receipts Journals for the strata for the period 1JAN21 to 30JUN21. I have been informed by NSW Fair Trading that I have a right to such information.
Thank you.
Once you have these documents, you can
(1) Search the listing (which should be only a few pages long for a strata of your size and a 6 mth period), establish what payments you want to look into further and then you can
(i) cross reference a payment made by the strata to any payments approved by the committee at a meeting AND
(ii) ask the agent for further information on any given payment or receipt if the committee did not approve any payment at a meeting or if the approval in the meeting does not clarify, to your satisfaction, who was paid and why
When you have listed all of your concerns for that those 6 months, email the agent with your queries PAYMENT BY PAYMENT and RECEIPT BY RECEIPT with a CC to the committee. Give them 10 days to reply.
Once you receive your response from the agent or committee, I suggest you thank them and ask for a copy of the Cash Payments and Cash Receipts Journals for the strata for the period 1JAN20 to 31DEC20.
NB: Sir Humphey is spot on when he states the hubs/portals offer “high level” information only ie aggregated. This is of course no use to anyone who wants to know about specific payments or receipts. Case in point: I could see that IN AGGREGATE insufficient levies were paid to a strata in a particular quarter. Such data is pretty useless really when I wanted to know who exactly was in arrears.
Good luck.
What body made the ruling/decision that only C/tee members can access invoice payments etc & why? It is the owners money & in the owners interest to know EXACTLY who is being paid for what.
In very simple terms it is the owners collectively who have made that decision in accepting the terms of the software usage supplied by the strata manager.
You can always propose at your next AGM that there may be more open access to financial information than the Hub currently provides, be the software may not allow it, the strata manager may charge more for it, and the other owners (as a majority) may not want it.
There are other platforms like our sponsors StrataBox that allow a more detailed view of invoicing and payments, but even then I think the default is to allow detailed information to only be available to committee members, and you must have OC agreement to change that setting.
You are entitled to view the details of all transactions for and by the OC, but that doesn’t mean on a day-to-day basis.
If you think there is something untoward happening, it really doesn’t cost that much to get access to all the information held by the strata managers on the owners corp behalf, and which they must by law provide (albeit under controlled circumstances).
If you find evidence of the misuse of funds, at the very least you can use that as an argument for making sure the current strata committee is not re-elected at the next AGM.
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.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.