For owners there is an online portal available via the Owners Corporation Manager Strata Angels website to check your fees and accounts, download insurance certificates, and update your contact details. Please contact Strata Angels if you have not received your login details or have lost access.
Owners Corporation Levies
Levies are set each year at the Annual General Meeting and in accordance with the Owners Corporation Act 2006.
Owners are invoiced quarterly, based on lot liability which is specified in the plan of subdivision. This single plan of subdivision includes all lots within Stage 1 and Stage 2 of our complex. This means the commercial lots facing Grattan Street, apartments of 101 Grattan Street, the two town houses on Grattan Street, the units at 42 Grattan Place and the heritage Chapel at 46 Grattan Place. The combined cost of managing all common property and common services across the whole complex is apportioned across all owners of these lots.
Levies cover the cost of – for example – general administration, maintenance and repairs (in accordance with the maintenance plan), and recurrent obligations of the owners corporation.
The Owners Corporation Committee are cognisant of every decision regarding levies and work hard to minimise cost increases. Some factors (but by no means all) which influence levies include:
- interest rate rises,
- increases in the cost of maintenance services (primarily because trades have passed on their increased cost of materials and labour),
- increases in the cost of energy (electricity and gas) in Australia, which are projected to continue increasing, and
- increases in the cost of insurance – globally (primarily due to climate change).
These factors are beyond the committee’s control and have impacted all strata complexes. They are the same factors contributing to the cost of living concerns in Australia and indeed globally.
Factors which relate specifically to our complex include that it is some 30 years old (and in some areas, much older) and experiencing the kinds of long term maintenance demands of any aging infrastructure.
Maintenance and repairs are largely managed through our maintenance plan, approved at the 2023 AGM, and a legal requirement under the Owners Corporation Act 2006. Our maintenance plan projects the costs of all common property and common service maintenance requirements over a twenty year period. Maintenance levies are set based on these cost projections but averaged over time, which ensures equity between owners now and well into the future.
The Committee is also working strategically to future proof the building. For example, progressively replacing aged and unreliable gas hot water systems with electric heat pump systems and a new solar array (late 2025). These works will, over time, reduce costs to all owners and residents and is funded through the judicious application of the maintenance budget, government rebates and in accordance with the maintenance plan.
The Committee also note that the communal hot water, hydronic heating and ventilation systems which operate throughout most of the complex mean the majority of residents have much smaller energy bills throughout the year.
