Owners Corporations (usually termed a Body Corporate) is a legal entity in Australia that typically manages apartment buildings and townhouse complexes as part of a common property or strata scheme.
While this is sometimes managed by professionals within the property who have the required experience it can result in headaches when the necessary expertise is neither available or unqualified individuals take on more than they can chew.
Based in Victoria, this is where owners corporation management in Melbourne was such a boon for our requirements.
The key responsibilities of an Owners Corporation that need to be taken care of are managing common property such as pools, gardens, hallways and various facilities. In terms of financial management budgets need to be prepared, levies collected from owners, and funds for maintenance and repairs must be managed.
Other key areas and where some of the biggest headaches occur involve insurance issues, compliance with the myriad local and state regulations and building codes and dispute resolution including mediation over conflict related to common areas.
Some smaller owner corporations as stated above manage their own affairs but we felt like we’d hit the lottery when we employed the services of a management company that specifically handled the day-to-day operations and decision-making in our mid-size complex.
In addition to handling all those issues aforementioned, they organised the all-important meetings, made decisions and reviewed our budgets. All this was done with the required transparency that satisfied the pickiest of owners and freed up more time for other things.
Also, they were well versed in the legal requirements having a wealth of experience across many projects in the Melbourne area.
Common areas are the responsibility of all owners, but it takes significant time and work to manage everything and frankly, expertise to manage all the issues involved. We found that while we had lawyers and builders of considerable standing on the management under our previous structure, too often their areas of expertise were at odds with the management of buildings.
Besides, many owners felt there were vested interests at stake when day-to-day decisions were made outside of AGM meetings. This caused conflict both spoken and, perhaps more damagingly, unspoken as our owners’; corporation descended into infighting and finger-pointing.
The decision to outsource the affairs to a firm specialising in owners corporation management meant that legislation, insurance, the organisation of meetings, record keeping (a vital part of following the law to the letter) as well as property maintenance were all professionally and expediently managed.
This was well worth the cost in ensuring that the bickering we had was all but eliminated and the regulations were followed precisely so we would recommend this approach to anyone in a situation like ours no matter in which Melbourne suburb your complexes are located.
