Question: Can committee members submit petty cash receipts to the strata manager and be reimbursed for personal expenses like coffee, petrol, phone payments, etc?
Answer: Yes.
The answer is yes. People can be reimbursed for strata plan related costs.
The committee would need to approve these for reimbursement, and they should be directly related to the management of the scheme – that might be petrol, receipts from Bunnings, etc.
This post appears in Strata News #683.
Andrew Terrell
Bright & Duggan
E: Andrew.Terrell@bright-duggan.com.au
P: 02 9902 7100
Our body corporate of 8 units has a Secretary/Treasurer who has been doing the job for decades unopposed. In the last decade he has been charging a fee for his services which started at $300 pa and has increased annually without mention at the AGM’s until the last couple of years when I have brought it. It has increased by $50 to $100 pa depending on how much our levies increased. He now charges $1,250.00 pa. Unfortunately he has his long-term cronies who vote for him to increase the levies and his fee every year and voting is always 5 to 3 in favour of this. This means that the Secretary/Treasurer only contributes around $10 pa more each year into our coffers because of his personal fee increase. I don’t think this is fair, the job is not increasing every year, I believe it is a voluntary position and I would personally do it gratis if given the opportunity. Is there anything that can be done about this if he has the votes 5 to 3 in favour. These are long-term residents who I feel are too embarrassed to vote against him. He has lived here for 40 years.
The following exchange occurred after this post was published.
NSW Lot Owner:
Just to clarify, even if the Strata Committee and Owners Corporation pass a motion at the AGM that says ‘no restrictions be placed on the decisions of the Strata Committee’ (which we assumed related to building works, not personal payments) you are saying that this does NOT over ride section 46 of the Act?
Leanne Habib, Premium Starta:
You are correct that Section 46 requires the Owners Corporation to determine the amount to be paid at an annual general meeting retrospectively.
The Strata Committee cannot override the powers/duties of the Owners Corporation. Section 36(3)(a) clearly states that a Strata Committee cannot make a decision that is required by or under any Act to be made by the owners corporation by unanimous resolution or special resolution or in general meeting. The motion you set out below is invalid and cannot achieve its intention. Just because there are no restrictions on the Strata Committee as per the motion below, this does not mean that the motion serves to give to the Strata Committee decision making powers reserved for the Owners Corporation in general meeting pursuant to the Act.
Thank you Leanne for that clarification to the reader.
I have another related question:
Q: Where in the new legislation/Regulations are RESTRICTED MATTERS identified?
The term is not defined in either the Act of Regs.
In fact, there seems to be no longer the requirement to have a motion at an AGM imposing limitations on powers of the Strata Committee. Have I missed something?
s.13 Act lists those functions that the OC, SC or SMA may have delegated authority or be conferred responsibility; and Cl 4 of Reg adds three more functions that are permitted under delegation or conferred to a member of the SC.
Is this correct?