Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
A well-performing body corporate is a critical component of managing a building and its residents. A healthy body corporate is also one that is able to ensure the effectiveness of the owners’ committee and maintain a high level of professionalism at all times. If you are questioning the performance of your existing body corporate and are thinking of changing body corporate, this is definitely the article for you. Today, we have a look at some of the signs of a healthy body corporate that will assist you in analysing the effectiveness and quality of your existing body corporate company’s performance. Read on to find out more!
One of the biggest roles of your body corporate company is the consistent and proactive addressing of any maintenance issues that may arise. There should be a demonstrated history of addressing maintenance issues that may include the discussion of matters raised by lot owners, effort to determine if the matter is really a body corporate issue and action taken to rectify matters once responsibility is determined. All this information and more should be accurately noted down in simple yet detailed entries that can be referred to with ease.
Every building will have its fair share of issues, one if which happens to be building defects. Whilst it is impossible to fully eradicate any potential defects, the way the body corporate manages these outstanding issues is a telling tale of whether your body corporate company is performing well. Ideally, defects identified should be reported to the builder and immediately rectified. The body corporate is expected to be openly and responsively engaged with builders in order to solve problems sooner rather than later.
Defects in both newer and older buildings require capital works. Once again, the most important factor is the addressing of these defects. One of the key performance indicators of this is the sinking fund balance. All buildings will eventually need capital works and the body corporate is in charge of collecting to meet those needs. Body corporate should estimate the costs and how much to collect, along with when and where it will be spent. A healthy Sinking Fund balance is roughly in line with the forecast and should be adequate enough to cover upcoming works.
A good body corporate company is one that develops the habit of paying levies consistently and in a timely fashion. Late levy issues can upset people’s routines and in turn, have a negative impact on collections. Missing the levy issues raises a red flag as funds are required to be recovered, usually by double levies for the next period. In essence, consistent levy issues indicate professionalism from your body corporate management.
A healthy body corporate is one that holds their annual AGMs during the same period of time each year. Annual AGMs may be a day or two off but are usually expected to happen in the same week of each year. One late AGM may not be a cause for concern, but a consistent record of delays may be an indication of management issues and should be treated as a serious concern.
A well-performing body corporate company should be holding frequent committee meetings that discuss issues such as insurance renewal, repairs and general maintenance of the building. Some of these issues may be complex and may take a significant amount of time to rectify, which is why regular committee meetings are essential. Committee meetings are also important as it gives the committee time and space to come up with plans and create an agenda for the building moving into the future. If your body corporate company fails to hold regular committee meetings, we highly recommend that you take a further look into why this is the case.
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We hope that this article has given you some of the key indicators of a well-performing body corporate organisation. If you feel like your existing body corporate is not meeting the mark, we highly recommend that you look into the issue and consider changing body corporate companies. All the best!
