Body corporate management is essential to creating a peaceful community in your strata scheme. A professional can keep things running smoothly while safeguarding the long-term value of your property.
Body corporate management SA is an expert with in-depth knowledge of legislation, industry practices and property management. Their job involves keeping their scheme compliant while delegating decision-making to committees. Furthermore, they handle key administrative duties such as recording meetings and sending correspondence.
Strata By-Laws
By-laws for strata corporations provide the rules governing what owners, tenants and visitors may do on body corporate property. They play an essential role in helping corporate bodies manage assets equitably and effectively, benefiting all stakeholders involved.
Various strata by-laws govern everything from how residents behave to which window coverings are allowed in each unit. These by-laws are developed by either the owner’s corporation of a strata scheme (also referred to as an owner’s corporation) or its management committee.
By-laws, unlike laws, are created through an Annual General Meeting or Special General Meeting and approved at their subsequent ratification meeting. Any rules that conflict with another by-law or legislation cannot be enforced; therefore, by-laws cannot be legally binding.
An invalid by-law can be overturned if found unenforceable, unfair, or unreasonable. Furthermore, such by-laws could discriminate against one or more owners or residents and violate state strata law.
Body corporates are governed by articles or by-laws as outlined in their articles of incorporation, along with various Acts and Regulations such as the Strata Titles Act. Sometimes disputes arise because of disagreement regarding interpreting these by-laws; an experienced and well-trained Strata Manager can handle such situations effectively and ethically.
Administration
Corporate fees must be paid if you’re building or complex has been organised into a body corporate body. These contributions help maintain the common property and ensure the complex looks its best while covering unexpected expenses such as repairing damage to buildings or managing long-term maintenance requirements.
Administration for body corporates falls to its committee; however, some bodies hire professional body corporate management SA as administrative assistance. Although not voting members of the committee, these managers carry out duties and responsibilities at the direction of their committee. A good professional manager will have an in-depth knowledge of legislation while typically working alongside teams specialising in insurance, accounting and body corporate management.
Keeping your body corporate compliant with regulations and legislation is paramount, and the body corporate manager can assist the committee by ensuring proper records are kept, and that documentation is distributed to owners.
Other tasks for the manager may include coordinating meetings such as committee and annual general meetings, including setting meeting agendas and proxy forms for AGMs. They will also prepare financial accounts and budgets for the body corporate, manage collections of levies and debt from owners, arrange an annual insurance valuation for buildings and officer bearer’s liability policies and maintain a register of contracts.
Funding
As with any organisation, body corporates need funds for daily maintenance and renovation projects. Funds collected via levies on the common property are split into two separate accounts: Administrative Fund and Capital Works Fund (sinking fund). Any budget must include both funds – it would be wise not to assign too much money towards one fund over another as this can lead to an unexpected deficit at year’s end (Figure 1).
Insurance
As with car and home insurance policies, body corporates are subject to a cost that exceeds any claims they pay out on. Therefore, care must be taken not to overspend and fall into financial difficulty.
Typically, corporate bodies are required to obtain both full rebuild coverage for buildings and public liability coverage – this may even be mandatory in some states.
The body corporate provides multiple insurance policies covering plant and equipment, security alarms and building improvements. Individual lot owners may require content or landlord insurance on items in their lot.
Some strata communities maintain funds in a body corporate bank account to cover any unexpected expenditure, like painting projects or gutter replacements that come unexpectedly. When an expense such as this arises; however, a special levy will be levied to cover these expenses.