Help Centre
All information is general of nature and should not be taken as advice. Legislation varies by state and territory. If you are unsure, please contact us.
Basic Strata Info
What is Strata?
If you are the owner of ' 18 Wallaby Way, Fairfield, 1000' and want to split it into two so that two homes can now be on the property instead of one, you are creating a Strata Scheme. Of course there is a whole legal process associated with that, but that is essentially the end goal. To put multiple homes, where in the past there was only one.
That is how an address transforms from '18 Wallaby way...' to '1/18 Wallaby Way...' and '2/18 Wallaby Way...' etc.
There are some exceptions to the rule, but in most cases the above timeline was followed.
See below the definition from NSW government:
Strata title allows individual ownership of part of a property (called a “lot” and generally an apartment or townhouse), combined with shared ownership in the remainder (called “Common Property” e.g. foyers, driveways, gardens) through a legal entity called the owners’ corporation.
What is an Owners Corporation?
An Owners Corporation is what we call the group of owners in the strata scheme. Depending on your state, it may also be called Body Corporate or Strata Corporate.
An owners corporation operates like any other community association or business. It can make rules which are binding on the corporation, owners and tenants regarding the use of common property and the lots, providing that the rules do not contravene legislation governing strata titles or other laws.
Where does funding for an Owners Corp come from?
From the owners!
The levy notice that so many owners get frustrated by is actually going into a shared pool of money that all the owners in the community are contributing to. Make no mistake, it is your money that is being used to protect your asset!
Frustration from this levy notice is understandable. They frequently increase and owners are left bewildered as to where the money disappeared to. Which is why connection and teamwork with your neighbours is so important.
The better you can work together as a community, the more efficiently this pool of money will be used, the less your contribution needs to be in the future.
How is this community managed?
Traditionally, communities hire a body corp manager to assist with this. But fundamentally, the decisions are made by the owners.
This is the point of difference of Loma Strata. Owners no longer need to hire a body corp manager. They can save thousands of dollars each year as a community by self-managing their scheme without a massive time and energy input.
Loma Strata guides owners in raising issues, voting on them and actioning them if it is approved.
Eg. repainting the exterior. Everyone votes on when this should be done, what colour it should be and more.
A massive contribution from strata managers comes in recordkeeping all documents and decisions made by the community. This is effortlessly completed by Loma Strata and always accessible by all owners in the community.
How are decisions made?
By the community, for the community!
Most decisions are usually made by owners at the AGM (Annual General Meeting). Which as the name implies, should occur once a year. Part of the decisions made at this meeting is the election of the committee. These committee members make decisions on behalf of the community throughout the year.
If your community has not been having annual meetings, or if you have not been involved in any decision-making for the community, you likely part of a mismanaged strata scheme and may need some support. See other resources for links to information for your state or contact us.
What does “self-managing” a strata scheme mean?
Self-managing means the owners (usually the committee) take care of the day-to-day management of your building or complex instead of hiring a professional strata manager.
The benefits of this is primarily in saving thousands of dollars a year as a community, as well as giving owners more control for how things are run.
Loma Strata helps owners who have chosen to self manage. By providing a central hub for communication and record-keeping.
Is self-management hard?
If you are part of an amicable community, that gets on, you'll be surprised how straightforward it is. Especially using Loma Strata.
The members of the committee will have more responsibility as well as a larger time and energy input in order to 'push things along.' But the value you get from self managing far exceeds the energy input. Also, It gets much easier after for all the owners after you've completed your first year.
Even if you have no experience in doing something like this, you will surprise yourself how quickly everything will start to make sense, and how much better it is.
Lot Liabilities and Lot Entitlements
The names of these change state by state. Unit Entitlements, Lot Allotments and otherwise. But their function remains uniform between the states.
Lot Liabilities and Entitlements are important to know in the running of your community, and can be found in your Owners Corporation Schedule or Plan of Sub Division documents.
Generally speaking, they mean the below:
- Lot Liabilities represents the share of owners corporation expenses that the lot owner is required to pay.
- Lot Entitlements refers to the share of ownership of common property and determines voting power.
Where do Lot Liabilities and Lot Entitlements come from?
These figures are assigned in the Plan For Sub-Division documents which were provided to local government when the parcel of land was initially subdivided.
An example of a plan for sub division in Victoria can be found here.
But lets run through a couple of examples together.
Example 1
In the above example, the parcel of land was divided up equally. So each lot received equal lot entitlement and liability.
- Lot 1 = 100 Entitlement & 100 Liability
- Lot 2 = 100 Entitlement & 100 Liability
- Lot 3 = 100 Entitlement & 100 Liability
So each owner would be paying equal levies and have equal voting power.
However in the next example:
Example 2
In this next example, the parcel of land was not divided equally. As you can see 2A and 2B are much smaller. The Owners Corporation Schedule reflects that:
- Lot 1 = 100 Entitlement & 100 Liability
- Lot 2A = 50 Entitlement & 50 Liability
- Lot 2B = 50 Entitlement & 50 Liability
- Lot 3 = 100 Entitlement & 100 Liability
Which means the owners of Lot 2A and 2B respectively are paying half the amount of levies as the owners of Lot 1 and Lot 3. However, the owners of Lot 2A and 2B also have half the voting power in making decisions for the community.