SSKB Strata Series Red Flags in Strata Webinar-20261007_073006UTC-Meeting Recording

October 7, 2026, 5:30PM

42m 11s

Kelley Rigby   0:04
Good evening and welcome to another series of the SSKB Strata Series. Tonight we are going to be chatting about red flags in Strata. 15 warning signs every Queensland lot owner should know. Now before we jump in, I will definitely introduce Tania and myself, but I will just quickly say we had Bonnie on the agenda tonight, but unfortunately for personal reasons, she can’t be with us. She will be dearly missed. Okay, so jumping into it, just to introduce Tania, who is the Business Development Manager at SSKB. Tania has been in the industry since she was 18. Now I know we’re looking at Tania and she only looks 20, but she’s actually been in strata, Body Corporate, management rights for a decade plus. I will say a decade plus. She’s someone that is extremely knowledgeable, someone that I lean on a lot when I have a curveball question about anything to do with strata and she’s highly respected in the industry. So welcome, Tania. And I am going to be the MC for the night. My name is Kelley Rigby. I’m from Harcourts Property Hub in Robina. My husband and I, we actually specialise in selling townhouse and units on the Gold Coast. So this one, this red flags in Strata, I am so happy to be your MC for the evening because this comes up all the time when we are obviously have those buyers come through the open homes with certain questions. So let’s get started.

What we’re going to cover tonight is what counts as a red flag. So we’re going to go through, you know, one issue versus a pattern. Then we’re going to go through the 15 red flags. So financial maintenance, governance, insurance and safety planning. And then common scenarios, frequently asked questions, and then what to do next. So, 5 steps to approach, to spot a red flag. Okay, so first off, what actually counts as a red flag? So a red flag is a pattern, not just a bad week. One issue rarely proves that a scheme is poorly run. So it’s more reoccurring and when the recurring red flags come up, that’s obviously where you want to look closer. Red flags can relate to finance, maintenance, governance, insurance, safety or communication. One red flag doesn’t mean a scheme is poorly managed. Patterns are what matter. So committees aren’t expected to be experts in everything, just to know when to seek advice. So Queensland Body Corporate framework sets specific rules around budgets, funds and maintenance. So, 5 things we’ll obviously cover is financial maintenance, governance, insurance and safety and then forward planning. So, let’s jump into the financial one first. So, the heading, we’ve got the scheme regularly issues special levies. So, let’s jump into this one, Tan. If I’m a buyer or I live in a scheme and I can see this happening all the time, is that a red flag or what am I looking at?

Tania Stewart   3:20
It can be a red flag. We wouldn’t want to see year on year or every six months a Body Corporate Committee calling an EGM to raise a special levy. Sometimes things do pop up. A couple of years ago we had the facade cladding and that was something that committees didn’t foresee in their sinking fund forecast. It wasn’t something they could budget for. Consultants were not cheap. So for something like that, an isolated event, or what we’ve seen post Cyclone Alfred, a lot of roof membranes were compromised and so forth. So, we did see committees calling extraordinary general meetings to adopt a contractor and to raise capital funds to cover those expenditures.

So, a one-off, I think that’s okay. As you kind of said, it’s not a daily thing, but it’s a one-off. So, it’s not like a naughty kid or a naughty building, naughty committee, not seeing what’s coming up. But it’s more that if it’s all the time, you need to be questioning, okay, what is the Body Corporate doing? Are we not planning prior? Are we not foreseeing upcoming works? Are we not adhering to a maintenance schedule? Like what’s going on? And if it’s, yes, like it can be different things, but obviously to mitigate these going on, if you can get really good active committee members that are making sure that works are progressing and they’re being proactive and not reactive, that would definitely mitigate the need for, you know, special levies being raised all the time.

Kelley Rigby   4:55
So lowest levies is treated as the goal. I love this one because I feel like when we sell in a scheme and the levies are quite low, depending on the scheme, as we spoke about earlier, obviously you can jump into that. But sometimes when I’m looking at a scheme and the levies are quite low, but there’s other certain things that aren’t getting done, like maintenance and things like that. For me, that’s kind of a red flag. If it’s a larger scheme, you know, a lot of lots in that scheme, I always feel like that could be a little bit of a red flag. What do you think?

Tania Stewart   5:31
I think every Body Corporate needs to be taken on its own merits. So if you can look at a three-storey walk-up, no lifts, no pool, no Caretaker, you know, little garden strip, a little bit of common area, cleaning that’s required. Of course, those, you know, levies will be low for the administration fund and the sinking fund.

So, you’ve just got to take each Body Corporate on its own here. What are the assets? What is the requirement here? But if it has multiple lifts, pools, building management, again, it could be factors that obviously with a newer scheme, it’s got a newer Caretaker agreement. It’s got, you know, things might be under warranty. So, these are so many different factors that you need to look into.

But, if it was a 20-lot scheme and the levies were very low and that agreements had multiple CPI increases for the Caretaker, you know, your lift service agreement, same thing, then yes, you would want to be reviewing previous sets of committee minutes, seeing, you know, what’s at play here. There could be some serious red flags. And I would really be encouraging people to undertake a search of the Body Corporate records to see what you’re purchasing into.

Kelley Rigby   6:40
So it’s not always a red flag, but definitely if obviously look at a, like you said, each individual scheme. Yeah. The sinking fund doesn’t match the building needs. So what does that, what does that mean by that?

Tania Stewart   6:52
So every Body Corporate needs to have a sinking fund forecast and this needs to have a period of nine years into the future. Now, a sinking fund forecast will outline all the capital works that will need to be replaced within a certain year period. Now, it’s not saying that on year 2030 when it’s lined, the carpets need to be replaced, that you need to replace the carpets in 2030. It is, however, used as a budgeting tool, so Body Corporates can ensure that they’re kind of bringing in contributions to meet that capital expenditure shall that rainy day appear. Ideally, we suggest to our Body Corporate committees that if any large capital works undertaken, like again, post Cyclone Alfred, some roof membranes may have been compromised and it might be a requirement for that to be undertaken. Now that probably is going to come a lot sooner than what was projected in the future. So if any major works are undertaken that weren’t kind of forecast or came early, I would suggest Body Corporates undertake a new report. They’re not that expensive; they’re a couple of hundred dollars, and then also every five years we would recommend it as well. You never want to fall short in your contributions for the sinking fund.

Kelley Rigby   8:05
So maintenance keeps being deferred. I love it where it says there, we’ll deal with that next year. So that next year can start building up, I’m assuming.

Tania Stewart   8:18
It can, and this can be for multiple reasons. You know, if you’ve got a high turnover of committee members and it just falls by the wayside, or maybe a dispute takes over the priorities, things like this can have that kind of effect on maintenance not getting undertaken.

So I think what’s really important is to have active committee members, sometimes not changing committees every year, but also having a community manager that is actively managing your scheme with you and with the building manager. So what I like to do with my committees is the first meeting of the financial year, probably don’t stick to the agenda too much, obviously, you know, have those requirements that you need to get a resolution for but at the start, let’s just take half an hour and go, hey guys, we’re into a brand new financial year. The Body Corporate owners have appointed us to undertake, you know, decision making for them for this coming financial period. What are the three key things we need to look at? Or what’s the like, if we were going to go on a triage system, what do we really need to focus on? And sometimes it might be too much for the chairperson or for the Caretaker, or it’s really not the Body Corporate manager’s role to, you know, to actively manage this too much. Obviously, assist with, you know, quotes and so forth, but sometimes breaking it down into subcommittees is a good idea, you know, getting two people to work together, to go to the market for things or to walk contractors around. But the main thing that I would point out here is if maintenance keeps getting deferred year on year, it could open you up to your office bearers’ liability being compromised with your insurance policy. We’ve seen that before and obviously people probably don’t want to sit on a committee if there’s no cover for office bearers liability. So again, if Body Corporates are undertaking workplace health and safety reports, they should be actioning those items that are flagged on it. We are seeing insurers wanting to see that those works have been undertaken and that there’s no risk to the Body Corporate. So if the committees don’t have drive to actually undertake any works, they probably want to think about getting that report done in the first place. I’d always obviously recommend it because you want to make sure there’s no risk to a Body Corporate. But yeah, committees really need to triage their repairs and maintenance.

Kelley Rigby   10:44
So the same problem keeps coming back. So obviously in there you can see there’s water ingress, the lift issues, obviously that’s kind of like a, looking at it would be kind of more like a band-aid fix than actually, yeah.

Tania Stewart   11:00
Yeah, and it’s really easy for Body Corporates to probably just fall into that. Let’s just put a band-aid on that for now and we’ll come back to it. The problem is, what if that gets worse? And how do you determine if it’s structural? Like committee members aren’t expected to know everything. They’re volunteers, you know, and we’re not saying we’ve got an engineer and a building, like all of these things.

They’re not industry professionals, but you know, if there’s water and grease coming in, it’s getting worse, and every time it rains, there’s resulting damages. Let’s be proactive. Let’s get this repaired so it doesn’t have any catastrophic you know, implications later on.

Kelley Rigby   11:42
Like flow on effect. Yeah, and coming from obviously a real estate. background as well, something like that, if a buyer does, I guess, a deep dive into the reports, which we get that quite a lot because obviously we do sell in complexes and buildings, I guess seeing if they go deep dive and they can see in the AGM and the minutes that the same thing keeps coming up and repairs, that could get flagged as well, just that it’s not being maintained. Would that be something that could affect a sale in a way as well?

Tania Stewart   12:13
I mean, it probably could. I mean, people that are purchasing into a scheme, I think, would want to know that things are getting maintained and serviced. There’s not going to be a big special levy because, you know, it’s just been left to the wayside and now the car park’s that bad that now we have to, you know, scrape it all back, relay concrete, do line marking, you know. So owners don’t want to buy into something. It’s already a hardened market. They don’t want to buy into something and then next second, bam, $20,000 special levy, you know.

Kelley Rigby   12:47
Yes, and it’s always, it’s the first question buyers ask, is there any special levies? First question I get.

Tania Stewart   12:52
Yeah, and there’s no crystal ball, there’s no crystal ball, because, as I said…

Kelley Rigby   12:55
No, that’s exactly, that’s what I say. That’s what I say. 

Tania Stewart   12:57
A few years ago we had the asbestos thing that came up that, you know, you had to get asbestos report and all of that, and then obviously the facade cladding. So there are unforeseen hazards and, but yes, best to be, yeah, on the front foot.

Kelley Rigby   13:13
Yes, of course, always. Yes, we don’t have crystal balls. We don’t. So building defects remain unresolved. So we chatted about this earlier. I said, oh, when we talk about building defects, does that mean as soon as the project’s finished, do you have to go in there and straight away and you kind of gave me a new lease. I didn’t realise they had so long to kind of look at it.

Tania Stewart   13:31
Look, I encourage the Body Corporates to not undertake a defects report within the first kind of six months or year. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time for things to settle to see if there’s actually a little defect there. So I would definitely encourage within the first two years for the Body Corporates to get somebody to undertake a defects inspection and report and put the builder on notice for any potential defects.

Body Corporates do have six years, six months. But yeah, be on the front foot. Don’t wait till year 5, don’t wait till year 6, and definitely don’t wait till year 6.5. So I would, within the first, about 18 months, two years, I would be getting a contractor engaged to undertake that for the owners.

Kelley Rigby   14:16
Beautiful. There’s no, there’s no long-term maintenance plan.

Tania Stewart   14:25
Look, this could be that potentially the scheme could be self-managed, doesn’t have a sinking fund forecast. I have seen that before. Very wary of that. That would ideally mean that you’re not raising, I’ve seen where schemes aren’t raising contributions for the sinking fund, which means you’re ultimately going to get hit with a special levy to raise capital. So, but basically, I think, again, as I said, committees need to really be having frequent meetings, not just discussing some of those little politics things, or, you know, blue sky approach of be great if we could astro turf the tennis court again next year, when it’s like, guys, do we have a preventative maintenance plan in place?
For dot, dot and dot, and if not, they may need to kind of come back and reevaluate that.

Kelley Rigby   15:13
Well, I guess if you have the good, likely, great maintenance plan obviously helps throughout without sort of getting those unexpected special levies, if you know what I mean, when it comes to that kind of, if you’ve kept on to the maintenance we were talking about, do you know what, when we spoke today, it made me laugh because you spoke to me about the garage door and we sell in a complex and we actually had our final inspection and they were doing maintenance on the roller door. And I know how good this complex is at their maintenance. Like they are very up to date. I’m always talking to the onsite manager. They’re always giving me reports. And when you said it today, it made me laugh because I went, oh, that’s funny because they were doing exactly that.

Tania Stewart   15:57
So I’ll touch on that. So we did talk, it’s so important. I don’t manage a whole heap of buildings. I do have a small boutique portfolio. I think it’s important as a business development manager to also be boots on the ground. You know, it’s very hard to empathise with, you know, potential new clients if I have no idea what they’re going through. So for all of my schemes, I have preventative maintenance plans in place for so many things and some people might think, Tania, that’s just crazy, but it’s actually not. So, what we see for a lot of kind of schemes is these developers are putting in garage roller doors and motors that probably aren’t fit for purpose, to be fair. They’re probably good for a home, a standalone home where it goes up and down maybe five times a day. But for something that’s going up and down 30, 40 times a day, of course you need a preventative maintenance plan in place. Because if you don’t, and those nuts and bolts aren’t getting greased or oiled, well guess what? It’s just going to blow up that much. So now you’re paying $5,000 for a motor every year, when if you just got a preventative maintenance plan for probably 500 bucks. Longevity, right? So, I mean, proof is in the pudding, but I definitely think, again, committees should be more proactive, less reactive and look after their assets.

Kelley Rigby   17:12
Committee decisions are made without enough information.
This is always hard.

Tania Stewart   17:20
Yes, it can be. And I must admit there are some strata managers out there that kind of get the problem, but kind of furnish the committee with it, but don’t give them the solution or the legislation background. What I like to do with my Body Corporate is, hey guys, we’ve received this problem. This would be my solution. This is the legislation, like spend limits, resolution types, things like that. You know, and then you’re furnishing the committees with the correct information. But what I must also kind of say is what happens here is sometimes committees just make decisions based on whatever information they get. And we’re not saying committee members, like they’re volunteers, right? Committee members. We’re not expecting them to know everything. So if it’s something that it could look like it’s a lot of work, it could look like it’s quite detailed, I would every day of the week engage a specialist contractor. They will come, they will do the scope of works, they will produce the tender document, they’ll run the tender, they’ll project manage it. They’ll sign off on it and some works may need the building to be re-certified. So they will do all of that for you. I would in no way expect a committee to go through that whole process themselves. And it’s definitely something that I wouldn’t be comfortable doing up the scope of works for something that I have zero experience on. And that’s fine. Strata managers aren’t meant to be engineers either, but they are meant to be there to assist the Body Corporates and say, guys, don’t feel bad. I don’t expect for you guys to know everything about this. But let’s engage dot.. dot.. dot, because I have confidence that they will be able to assist us.

Kelley Rigby   18:52
The committee doesn’t understand its responsibilities. So there’s, I know you guys, I’ll jump in for you before, because I know that you guys, like the, I, look, I’m a huge advocate for SSKB because what they do, they do a lot of things great but they do a lot of education and I just love it coming from my background and obviously real estate now as well. It’s just if anyone has a question or they’ve got anything they need, I’ve got booklets on my open home, I’ve got things I can send them to the website, you know, and if they want to go on the committee, I can send them there and they can learn about the committee and what responsibilities are there and I just feel like there’s so much resource on that website and in their booklets to help with this because it is a big, it’s a huge, huge, no, I don’t want to say issue, but it can be because it, you know, like you said, they’re volunteers. Bless them. Like every committee member I meet, I feel like hugging them. I have this, you know, because I know that they give so much time and I… you know, to ensure that things are, you know, going well for their community, so I think this is a big one.
Yeah.

Tania Stewart   20:06
We have over 400 articles on our website as you said. We’ve just in the last kind of 18 months released these information booklets. There are ones on committees, there are ones on, you know, your financials and so forth. So our approach is we want to be industry leaders in education because the more our building managers are educated, the more our committees are educated, and the more our lot owners are educated, happy days. It’s an easier job for us, and I must tell you, for strata managers, it isn’t the easiest kind of job to undertake. It’s problem solving every day. You know, it’s sometimes that shoulder to cry on. It’s, you know, owners that are really disgruntled or they don’t understand. So the more education that’s out there, we’re all for it because it makes everyone’s job a lot easier and it just takes out some of that heat or embarrassment if they think this is the way, but then they find out it’s not, so we are massive in education, but we have, yeah, webinars, in-person client events, everything.

Kelley Rigby   21:00
Important decisions aren’t properly documented. So what is that? When they say documented, is that like at an AGM or committee meetings, both, everything, all of it?

Tania Stewart   21:12
So what we kind of see quite frequently is sometimes minutes aren’t a reflect, like, you know, when I’m obviously talking to committees that are with a current strata manager and there’s some bug bears, you know, and some of it, we don’t get our agendas on time, the minutes weren’t a true recording, or we never got the minutes. We’ve had that before. We won a 50 something lot scheme a couple of years ago where the strata manager sat there like, I’m sitting here like now, no typing, and there’s no minutes. So, you know, I mean, there isn’t, but important decisions need to be disclosed. They need to be disclosed to all lot owners. I don’t think you’d be happy if you’re an owner not knowing where your money was going. Do you know what I mean? So you need to disclose that. But even for potential purchases, again, I’ll go back to it. If there isn’t a clear resolution that building ABC is waterproofing their roof or they’ve got cracks in their garage and it needs epoxy crack injection works, that could be $20,000. You’d be like, well, I didn’t know $20,000 was coming up. So it’s so important that Body Corporates disclose and it’s also good for record keeping looking back on. So yeah, you need to make sure that your minutes are a true reflection. And if you’re not having in-person committee meetings, it should be a VOC, which is a vote outside committee meeting, just for full disclosure to all owners and potential buyers.

Kelley Rigby   22:34
Insurance is treated as a solution to maintenance problems.

Tania Stewart   22:41
Look, we could sit here and talk for 10 minutes, but we actually have a webinar already on this. So again, if you just go to our SSKB website, there’s like a 20, 30 minute webinar on insurance. But the big thing is you cannot rely on insurance policy to cover you for everything. And no, insurance sometimes won’t cover maintenance. It’s more of an insurable event, but I would strongly suggest anybody who’s watching this, go watch that webinar.

Kelley Rigby   23:11
So safety and compliance keeps being pushed down the list. So what’s what, when you say safety and compliance, what does that, is that, what are we talking about?

Tania Stewart   23:23
I guess it might be something, again, where the committee got a workplace health and safety report done. It now forms part of the Body Corporate records. As I said previously, we’re seeing insurers want to review this report and to kind of get the remittance that the works were done. So, again, if there is any risk to the Body Corporate and that Body Corporate is every lot owner, right? Every lot owner makes up the Body Corporate and they appoint members to work on their best interests throughout the financial year. If there is any item, safety and compliance item, that is going to be detrimental to the Body Corporate, they need to act on it. They need to mitigate any risk to the Body Corporate. If they don’t, and there’s negligence, there will be a claim against the Body Corporate liability policy. And again, if the committee doesn’t have office bearers because they haven’t done this, then I mean. So you really need to be proactive and get on top of any you know, safety and compliance issue. That should not go to the bottom. Again, maybe the turf on the tennis court can wait for a couple of years and let’s just mitigate any risk to the Body Corporate. Yeah. That tree that triage system, that triage system might not be the beautification, it might be the actual risk.

Kelley Rigby   24:41
I actually like that triage. I like that though. That’s good. This is a big, I get this all the time, you know, when I do talk to owners in community title schemes is owners don’t understand where their money is going. I think I always, you know, they say I pay all this money and I, nothing happens. And, you know, I think it’s so important. For me, it’s education. And like, obviously, when I sit down with them, I try and go through everything. But I think, I don’t know what you, I think that that is about education, like education when you do buy in and knowing where it is going. Yeah.

Tania Stewart   25:15
Oh, and I 100% agree. Again, why it’s so important to do these types of webinars and education pieces, because we’re usually the author of the levy notice, they think SSKB gets all of that money, which you know, we actually don’t. We are one creditor in your administration fund. And it’s not working. So you have two funds. You obviously have your administration fund, which is your day-to-day runnings of the scheme, electricity, lift, Caretaker, insurance, all of those things, and your administrator, SSKB, or you know, whoever else it may be. And then you have your sinking fund forecast, which is your rainy day, your capital works. So that would be you know, lift refurbishments, hallway carpets, roof membranes, I mean, fire indicator panels, all of that, like replacements. So they are two funds. Now, you can obtain the financials depending on what software you use, but you know, we have StrataMax and owners can review the financials when they want.

And you can see every single, on the line items, you can see every single kind of, not the creditors so much to that, it’s more the committee members that see that status report, but you can see every single line item, repairs and maintenance for building, repairs and maintenance for electrical, repairs. So that is a breakdown. That is what your levies are going towards.

Kelley Rigby   26:37
Yeah, gee, that’s good. I didn’t know that they that that that was accessible. That’s amazing.

All right, conflict, complaint and committee turnover are constant. Red flag. I like it how it says in there that obviously some disagreements are normal in a community. There are many different personalities all living under essentially one very big roof. So it can happen, yeah, but yeah.

Tania Stewart   27:09
Look, it can and you have to be appreciative that a lot of committee members, owners on site, you know, they’re emotionally attached to where they live. It’s their biggest asset most times. So you’ve got those emotions that are involved in it and sometimes it just takes a different path of communication to mitigate those conflicts. So what I always say is, hey, I’m your administrator, use me. Don’t have that heated conversation in the lift between the two of you. Filter in writing through me because you’re probably going to like calm down a little bit and then I can kind of, you know, give some guidance around that. But it does happen. And sometimes complaints are justified and they’re valid. But sometimes it also might be that the committee aren’t always on site. It might be heavily an investment building and they’re just not privy to these issues. Or maybe there is no Caretaker facility manager or Building Manager and maybe the committee might need to look at, okay, it’s an aging building, you know, heavily investor owned, not so many owner occupiers anymore. We don’t want to, but we are going to have to engage a Caretaker or a facilities manager to kind of be boots on the ground and to reduce or mitigate that risk of, you know, complaints or compliance and proactively manage it. And then committee turnover, look, that’s a hard one. Again, if it is a bit of a heated scheme, again, they’re volunteers, people have jobs, families, friends, you know, extracurricular hobbies. So if they’re looking at their list of where they want to spend their time, it may not be on a committee where there’s a lot of conflict and so forth. So, but it also could just be.

The market’s great. They’re all selling, they’re all buying, they’re all, you know, so I mean, again, do a search of the Body Corporate records. Look to what, look at what you’re buying into. And this is where unfortunately, if it is a bit of a toxic kind of community, not everyone’s made for community living, but if it is toxic, it is going to reflect on the Body Corporate records. So it’s just really important, whatever you put in writing, it is going to be disclosed to any potential purchasers if they wanted to search the Body Corporate records and then you might not be getting the best return on your investment if that’s how the scheme proceeds. So yeah, it’s a hard one. Not always a red flag, but you know, it can happen.

Kelley Rigby   29:28
It can happen. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Nobody is asking what happens next. So, a red flag.

Tania Stewart   29:44
Again, it might just be, again, that high turnover of committees. It might just be, you know, you don’t have a strata manager that’s got their finger on the pulse. You know, I’ve been lucky enough to work with my committees that I manage, you know, for close to 8 years. So I kind of know when things are coming up. I know what the complaints are coming in or, you know, can see that trend or thinking, oh gosh, we actually haven’t replaced the pool, you know, chlorinator for a couple of years. Guess what’s coming up? The pool chlorinator. So it’s, again, as I said, I really encourage for that first committee meeting for the financial year, doesn’t always have to be a formal one. The committee might get together informally, again, what’s our triage? What do we want to work on? What do we really need to get on top of?
And is it a subcommittee? Is it a building managers thing? Like, just get a bit of a plan and then you know what you’re working towards, but…

Kelley Rigby   30:35
Yep, communication.

Tania Stewart   30:39
If it’s broke, you should fix it. Communication’s huge, yes.

Kelley Rigby   30:40
It is, isn’t it? In any strata building, no matter the size, I just think it’s all about communication.

Tania Stewart   30:46
Communications key.

Kelley Rigby   30:48
Okay, so some questions owners ask us most, so I’ll throw them at you. We probably have covered most of them, but we’ll run through them anyway. So, oh, the first one I like, how do I swap a strata manager?

Tania Stewart   31:05
Okay, so you need to have a look at your previous AGM minutes and see when you’re actually in contract, how long your contract is currently with your strata manager. I’d always suggest that the committee kind of comes up with a bit of a tender document and the questions that we usually get, and I think that I can quote on, they normally, you know, how big is the portfolio size and all of these questions.
They fail to say what’s the engagement date, how many meetings they need, you know, all of that kind of stuff. So I would probably, we have a tender document form that we can obviously furnish Body Corporates with, but knowing what agreement you’re currently into and then obviously going to providers for a proposal.
But make sure you’ve got that tender document form. Make sure you know you’re getting apples for apples. If you’re getting more than one quote, it’s so important because some strata companies will go in super cheap, but you’ve only got the one committee meeting budgeted for and then everything is an additional cost. So make sure you’ve got your apples for apples. And then once you get your proposals, they should furnish you with an administration agreement and motion wording, and then you need to table that on the upcoming general meeting. Now, if you’re a committee member doing that, you can raise it at the budget meeting. If you don’t have a budget meeting, you need to furnish it with your current community manager or Body Corporate management company prior to the AGM notice being drafted.
You have every right to review that AGM draft agenda to ensure that you know what is tabled on there is what you’re looking for. If you are a lot owner and not on the committee, you need to obtain the proposal well before the end of financial year for the scheme and you need to do a lot owner’s motion and that needs to be submitted before the end of financial year for your scheme and you need to ensure that you are financial as well.

Kelley Rigby   32:54
And a quick question, so how long, and this might be how long is a piece of string, but how long is a strata manager’s contract for normally?

Tania Stewart   33:04
Yeah, it can be, so the maximum is 3 years.

Kelley Rigby   33:09
Oh, okay. And so if I’ve got a strata manager and they’re only one year in and they’re just not doing the job that we’re expecting, can you bring someone else in before the contract ends or there’s no way?

Tania Stewart   33:22
There will be a termination clause in there, but you will need to have a meeting with them to kind of determine that they’re not performing as per their agreed services. But yes, ultimately you can, but it is a bit of legwork.

Kelley Rigby   33:33
I didn’t know that, so there you go. So what’s the difference between it? I know we kind of…

Tania Stewart   33:44
I talked to, I just will say, yeah, I was just going to say, at every committee meeting, at every committee meeting, the contracts register should be circulated. So that would be a good, if it’s not getting circulated in your committee agenda pack, you need to put your Body Corporate manager on notice and say contracts register needs to be there. And that’s important for even to see when you lift service agreements coming up, your HVAC, your fire service, you know, everything like that.

Kelley Rigby   34:05
So I know we touched on this just before, but what’s the difference between the admin and sinking fund?

Tania Stewart   34:12
Yep, real quick, admin is your day-to-day recurring costs, like your insurance, your repairs and maintenance, your Caretaker, your administrator, water, all of that kind of stuff. And then sinking fund is the non-reoccurring and it’s your major works, replacement, replacement fire panel, replacement lighting in the basement, all of that stuff.

Kelley Rigby   34:31
And who’s responsible for maintaining common property?

Tania Stewart   34:36
The Body Corporate and the Body Corporate is all lot owners who appoint minimum three, maximum seven members to represent them throughout the financial year.

Kelley Rigby   34:44
Is insurance a substitute for maintenance? No.

Tania Stewart   34:49
No, but again, I don’t give insurance advice, go to that webinar. But no, it’s usually an event, it’s reflective of an event. First flexi hose, water damage throughout an event. You know, Cyclone Alfred, water and grease coming through an event, you know, so, yeah.

Kelley Rigby   35:08
I know we said this before that it’s not always a red flag, but I’ll ask it anyway. Are frequent special levies always a bad sign? Not necessarily.

Tania Stewart   35:18
Not necessarily. There are unforeseen things that pop up every now and then. What we kind of see, especially if it’s a hardened insurance market, if the, you know, they’ve captured the contributions required to meet the coming year’s insurance policy. But what happens if we get 6 cyclones in one year? It’s a harder market. The insurers need to make their cover their money somehow, so it could go up 50%. If you haven’t budgeted for that, well, that’s not really, you know, it’s something you can’t foresee. But if you’re always raising contributions for the admin fund that are just skimming, you know, a surplus, like tiny surplus, you need to have funds to operate day-to-day. Yeah.

Kelley Rigby   36:00
Should a committee know everything about Strata? Who does know everything about Strata? Who does though? Honestly, I feel like after many years, I always learn something new, always. So no.

Tania Stewart   36:11
I’d love to say yes, but no.
Oh, tell me about it. I’ve been in the industry since, oh, I just went blackout. Anyway, time’s up. Thank you. Okay, good.

Kelley Rigby   36:22
It’s quite dark.
We can still see you, it’s okay. Oh, yeah, obviously no.

Tania Stewart   36:29
There we go, back on. No, we definitely don’t expect them to, and we’re here to help educate. And there’s also, we haven’t touched on it, but the BCCM website has heaps of training modules. We’ve got heaps of, you know, supplies here. But, and nowadays, there’s Facebook pages, I mean, they’re probably not the best, most accurate information. But we’d love for our committees to be educated and continue to be educated. We’re very passionate about that. We’d love to be leading industry professionals in that field.

Kelley Rigby   36:59
Yeah, well, you are. What should I do if I spot a red flag?

Tania Stewart   37:07
Thank you, Kelley.
Definitely undertake a search of the Body Corporate records. Or if you’re a lot owner and you’re really not sure that the committee is making the best decisions on behalf of all lot owners, go and be an observer at a committee meeting. You know, just observe for the first couple of meetings and then if you think, you know what, I’m an ex-engineer, I can do, you know, whatever it might be, go on the committee for a year and see what it’s all about. But if you buy into a scheme, you know, search the Body Corporate records, just make sure that there’s, yeah, not one red flag maybe, 15 of them, probably not.

Kelley Rigby   37:47
Yeah, exactly. And that’s what we always say. We always say that, you know, if there’s questions, a majority of the time, we like to think that we have the answers, but we always say, look, you can always get your solicitor to do a deep dive anyway. Like the option’s always there.

What are the biggest signs of a poor strata management?

Tania Stewart   38:10
Again, it’s those unresolved issues, all those things that continue, that nothing progresses. We do see poor record keeping and not enough information disclosed. What I will say about the record keeping at SSKB, if you are managed by us, we have the SSKB app that we developed ourselves. It’s not piggybacking off anyone else. It’s our own software. On there, owners can navigate their own Body Corporate records at the tip of their fingers. So they can review all their previous meeting documents, our booklets that we do, they’re on there in an e-form. They can pay levies. They can vote, all of that. So we are, they are the owners’ Body Corporate records. It shouldn’t be smoke and mirrors. It shouldn’t be jumping over 10 hurdles to get your community management statement document. So we have all of that there for owners to be able to view at any time. Not Monday to Friday, 8.30 to 5. It can be on the weekend. It’s, you know, it’s there for them. Free to the end user, so yeah, no cost to the Body Corporate or owner.

Kelley Rigby   39:13
And I say I put my real estate hat on, but I’ve always got it on. But I just say, you know, coming from a real estate agent, when we’re navigating a market that we’re in now and things happen quickly and buyers want things, transparency, and they want to see things straight away, something like that, where I can ring an owner at 7.30 at night and say, hey, can we just have a quick look at X, Y and Z, or, you know, I know they’ve got the bylaws in the form 2 now, but you know, just anything that the buyers maybe want to have a quick look at, you know, before we officially sign the contract. Like, that’s amazing. That’s just, instead of waiting till Monday. Yeah.

Tania Stewart   39:48
Yeah, and under the committee, if you are on the committee, there is a tab, committee tab, so we drop the committee agendas and stuff in there, so you’re not having to print out, you know, save the trees, you’re not having to print out agendas, it’s all there. And also those monthly status reports, that’s the ins and outs records for your Body Corporate, and it’s just something, an extra level of disclosure or transparency for Committee members, it basically just is a breakdown of the bank account, the ins and outs, you know, what lots have sold that month. You know, it’s basically a snapshot for committee members to go, this is where we’re at status report, right? So that’s all there on the app as well. So they can look at it whilst they’re on the bus going to work. Again, no smoke and mirrors.

Kelley Rigby   40:30
That’s so good. That’s so good. So I think this is our last one. So 5 steps before you worry. So the first one, look at the records, identify the pattern, understand the cause, ask informed questions and seek professional advice. Is there anything else? I reckon they’re pretty spot on to be fair.

Tania Stewart   40:54
I think they’re really good and I know we went through a whole heap of information tonight, but I think our marketing team is going to issue this out to all those that registered attendance tonight. But I mean, just do your due diligence. If you’re on a committee, you are there appointed to represent the best interests of all lot owners. So you want to make sure that you’re walking into it with confidence and understanding and that, you know, at the next AGM, if there is questions that you can hand on heart, say, you know, I did, I worked in the best interest or to the best of my capabilities. You don’t want to be second guessing what your Body Corporate manager’s got on the records or doesn’t have on the records. You want to, you know, you should be working as a team.

Kelley Rigby   41:34
Well, I just wanted to say thank you for inviting me along. I always love, I always learn something. I feel like I’ve got it nailed and then I do these webinars and I take away key points. So thank you so much. Obviously, if you do have any, any time, any time. And obviously, if you do have any questions in regards to this, please reach out to SSKB. If you are looking to buy, rent, in a scheme or you just want to know a little bit more on that side of things, I’m always available as well. Reach out anytime. So thank you so much all for coming along.

Tania Stewart   42:07
Thanks, Kelley.

Kelley Rigby   42:09
Bye.

 Stopped transcription.