Should You Attend Your Building's Strata Meetings?

How often do your building's strata managers hold meetings for the residents? You might not be interested in attending the majority of these meetings since you might not feel that the outcomes will greatly affect you. Of course, if you have a specific issue (or grievance) that needs to be raised, you can certainly attend and make your thoughts known. There's arguably one strata meeting that should be attended, and that's the big one. Attending your building's strata management annual general meeting (AGM) gives you both insight and input into the way your building is managed, and these outcomes can certainly affect you in the long run. But why is it such a good idea to attend this AGM?

Your Strata Fees

Living in a strata managed building means that you will be paying strata fees. You need to know where this money is going. Hopefully this financial state of affairs will be unsurprising and will be largely associated with the standard ongoing maintenance costs for the common areas of the building or complex. There might have been unexpected clean-up costs for a particular incident (such as a natural disaster), but you also need to look for proposed expenditure that they might consider to be frivolous, such as changes to any signage outside the building or renovating/beautifying a common area that is arguably fine just as it is. The AGM is your opportunity to learn about these matters (before any motions are passed) and have your say.

Yearly Comparison

The meeting will also include the minutes from the previous year's AGM. Why is this of interest? It gives you an insight to any issues, grievances, or proposals from 12 months ago, and how they were addressed or implemented. Was there a maintenance issue that was raised a year ago and has not been rectified? If not, why not? The meetings from the previous year's AGM are a good way to chart the progress and general effectiveness of the strata executive committee.

The Executive Committee

The election of the executive committee is another important part of a strata management AGM. If you own your property, you might even wish to nominate yourself. If you rent your property, ask the owner whether they might wish to nominate you. The executive committee takes care of the daily running of the strata scheme, making decisions with regards to the allocation of the strata fund. If you feel that your building is not being run as efficiently as it could be, joining the executive committee is a way to rectify this.

Maybe you won't go to every single strata meeting, but as you can see, there are some important reasons why you should make the time to attend the AGM.