Strata Management – what is it and how does it work?
Strata Management or also commonly known as Owners Corporation is a legal entity responsible for managing and maintaining the common areas of strata titled properties and the common interest of the multiple people who hold these strata titles on the same piece of land.
Strata titled properties have assets, including property and services, that single private lot owners do not have individual responsibility for or authority to act on with examples including corridors, communal lighting, shared roofs, carparks, open space, street frontage and other ‘public’ areas, which can include gardens, paths or roads within the land.
Legal structure
Owners Corporations provide a legal structure for shared ownership of the common property that applies to the land and the services that exist alongside the private lots which service multiple lot holders.
Functions
The primary functions are managing and administering common property, repairing and maintaining that common property, and implementing and maintaining insurance for all strata-held property on the same land.
Other functions include keeping a register, providing Owners Corporation Certificates and carrying out functions conferred by the Act, other legislation as well as the rules implemented by the corporation.
How it works and what it does
Legislation governing strata titles varies across different states but the principles are the same.
An Owners Corporation is a democratically elected body comprising elected representatives of the individual strata title owners as well as a representative or representatives of the corporation management, whether it be body corporate employee or corporation manager.
The corporation must hold a regular annual general meeting and other general meetings when necessary with the purpose to decide budgets, including insurance payments, and to decide annual policies relating to the corporation as a whole.
Resolutions are legally valid and are binding on the corporation and its members, occupiers and manager. The resolutions may have financial implications, such as increasing the levied fees to members, or implications to the property such as new building work and re-painting, or may involve changes to rights of access and usage to facilities like a gym or communal barbecue.
Throughout the year, the corporation also overseas and instructs repairs and maintenance of the common property.
