Question: Our committee has to report VOC decisions back to owners, but that comes with an admin cost. Doesn’t it make sense to report only spending decisions over, say, $500?
Our committee is appointed to act on behalf of owners, and it’s required to report decisions back to them. However, VOCs incur an admin cost.
Wouldn’t it make sense to streamline the whole process by not being required to report expenditure decisions under a figure of, say, $500? Matters above that still trigger the “red tape”.
Are there guidelines as to when owners need to be notified about a VOC? Most owners aren’t interested in the really minor stuff, so why bother?
Answer: Owners who don’t want the detail can opt out of VOC notifications, since the transparency exists for those who care.
We’re not sure what you mean by “report back”. A committee’s role is to make decisions, and minutes record those decisions. Perhaps that’s the “report” aspect you mean. Also, to clarify, a VOC is distinct from a committee meeting.
In any event, refer to sections 67, 68, 69 and 70 of the Standard Module for provisions about voting outside of committee meetings. The provisions allow owners to opt out of receiving details. Those owners who are disinterested can avail themselves of those opt out provisions if they wish.
We can’t agree with either your “red tape” comment or that most owners “don’t care”. While it’s true some owners are disengaged from the operations of a body corporate, it’s dangerous to generalise about their level of interest. On the issue of red tape, it might seem there are a lot of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo provisions in strata legislation. Having dealt with said legislation for over a decade, we can say with some certainty that every provision has a valid reason. In most cases, and especially in this case, the reason is transparency. It’s essential for committee operations to be transparent to all owners. If some owners don’t care enough to take advantage of that transparency, that’s on them, and they’ll have to bear the consequences. Respectfully, though, we don’t think it’s appropriate to reduce those transparency aims. What may be “minor” to you may be essential to someone else. At the end of the day, all owners’ money is contributing to the running of the body corporate, so the provisions are there to ensure all owners can know how that money is spent.
This is general information only and not legal advice.
This post appears in the October 2026 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
Chris Irons Strata Solve E: chris@stratasolve.com.au P: 0419 805 898
