Strata Chat With Joey

A timely lesson for all committees. Don’t ignore the QFES and if you receive a direction to rectify then get rectifying! The owners at this scheme now have to chip in $21k to pay this fine when that money could have been spent maintaining and upgrading the fire assets at the scheme. It should never have come to this.

So levies were failed at an AGM, now the body corporate needs to call an EGM and the Committee will be called on to draft it’s own budget and guess what - they get to pay me additional fees to do so.

If you are genuinely interested in your levies and what your body corporate is spending money on then get onto your committee. Don’t go to the AGM ready to throw stones, educate yourself, get involved.

My tips and tricks for keeping occupiers informed so that they are prepared for major works to take place and inconvenience is minimised.

My top 4 difficult conversations

Preparing a budget for the AGM and noticed two fire contractors are carrying out work. Investigated further. Not. Happy. Jan.

Are more quotes better? No, not always and you may end up burning relationships with really great contractors.

For high rises in particular it is often a good use of owners money to consider getting the external parts of the building washed down. The main reason is that during that wash down, contractors will report back to the committee on the condition of the paint and this might mean the body corporate brings painting forward or leaves it for a few extra years, depending on the advice. It never hurts to get a quote.

Today I highlight some of the do’s and dont’s of unit balcony enclosure. Start by doing research.

Sometimes an owner will be embarked that they have missed paying their levies and that is ok because life happens, we all miss deadlines. Today I had a ring side seat and pretty much the opposite of a good reaction to forgetting to pay levies. An owner has decided to try and pick apart committee decisions and general meeting minutes from 6 months ago, and he is doing this without first having done his research. I hope for his sake he has not alienated the Committee. Would have been great if he had started with a question as to what to do.

Today I talk about burrying the hatchet. Being the bigger person. Making the decision to act in a selfless way.

When was the last time your fire doors were inspected? Do you have any fire doors at your scheme? Every year fire doors on the common property and the door to your unit needs to be inspected. Fire doors save lives and rather than whinge about the inconvenience of having to hold a door open for ten minutes one morning, just get it done. Trust me, your life is worth the inconvenience.

Keep your common property safe. Keys safes are being raided by thieves and it might be time to consider alternative ways of keeping keys to the common property safe #strata #bodycorporate

Just because the scheme is created and levies are in the kitty does not mean the developer can have other owners pay for the gardener to tend to his unsold lots on the body corporate’s dime.

Today I am thinking out aloud on how I plan to manage a scheme where the committee are inclined to change the scope of work half way through a project and it leads to projects not being completed.

An overview of the takeaway messages and issues to consider to avoid the bait pricing issue at your scheme.

Today is the follow up to an much earlier segment where I talked about my concerns in owners voting to accept a painting quote which was some 10k under the two other painting quotes for the scheme. It was not a great job. I do not expect this contractor will honour their warranty.

Unfortunately we don’t always hold every possible document you might want to see that is relevant to your scheme. We can and do try to obtain them or you can do searches. Sometimes documents are thrown out before they make it to us.

Don’t despair, you can still nominate from the floor of the AGM to take a position in the committee.

An owner called me to complain that they had missed an inspection of their property and when we went over the details on the roll was very annoyed that we didn’t call him to find out his mobile number.......I didn’t have his number on the records so how could I call him?