Owning in a NSW strata scheme: the basics

What an owners corporation is

When a building or complex is divided into separately owned lots with shared common property — hallways, lifts, driveways, gardens, a roof — registering the strata plan automatically creates an owners corporation (you may still hear the older term "body corporate"). Every lot owner is a member; there's no opting in or out. It's a legal entity in its own right: it holds money, insures the common property, enters contracts, and makes decisions that bind all owners.

Most schemes appoint a licensed strata managing agent to handle the administration, and many also have a building manager; smaller schemes sometimes run themselves. Either way, the decisions belong to the owners and their committee — an agent administers, it doesn't rule.

Which rules apply to your scheme

Most NSW unit blocks and townhouse complexes are strata schemes, governed by the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (with the Strata Schemes Development Act 2015 covering how schemes are created and wound up). That's the rulebook this guide describes.

Some developments — typically master-planned estates with shared roads and facilities — are community schemes instead, run through community, precinct or neighbourhood associations under the Community Land Management Act 2021. The principles are similar, but the detail differs. And "large" strata schemes — more than 100 lots, not counting parking or utility lots — carry some extra obligations.

If you're not sure which you're in: a lot in a registered strata plan is a strata scheme; if your lot also sits under a community or neighbourhood association, community-scheme rules apply on top. Your strata plan and the strata roll will tell you, and NSW Land Registry Services can confirm.

Who runs it: the strata committee

Day to day, an owners corporation is run by a strata committee elected by owners at each annual general meeting. A committee has between one and nine members (large schemes must have at least three). From the elected members, three office-holders are chosen — chairperson, secretary and treasurer — and one person can hold all three, though sharing the load is usually wiser.

The committee makes most everyday decisions, and can be delegated functions such as issuing levies and arranging maintenance. But its authority isn't unlimited: some matters are reserved to the owners as a whole at a general meeting, and a committee member with a pecuniary interest in something being decided must disclose it and not vote on it.

Where your levies go

Owners fund the scheme through levies (contributions), set at the AGM. NSW law requires two separate funds. The administrative fund covers recurring costs like insurance, cleaning and routine maintenance. The capital works fund (once called the sinking fund) saves toward major and long-term work — painting, roofing, replacing common plant — so big bills are planned for rather than sprung on owners. The two funds are accounted for separately.

The meetings

An owners corporation must hold an annual general meeting every year, and owners must get at least 14 days' notice. The AGM covers the finances, insurance, levies, the election of the committee, and any motions owners or the committee put up. Other general meetings (sometimes called EGMs) can be held during the year for decisions that can't wait, with at least 7 days' notice. Strata committee meetings run separately for day-to-day business — owners may attend but generally can't speak or vote unless the committee allows it.

Most decisions pass by a simple majority. The weightier ones — changing by-laws, approving major renovations to common property — need a special resolution, a higher bar.

Your voice as an owner

Owning a lot gives you real levers, not just a vote once a year:

• Put a motion on a general meeting agenda. Any owner (or anyone entitled to vote) can require a motion to be included on the agenda of the next general meeting — in writing to the secretary, with the motion, your name, and an explanation of up to 300 words. The secretary must include it. (If you send it after the meeting notice has already gone out, it rolls to the next meeting.)
• Call for a general meeting. If something can't wait for the AGM, owners together holding at least a quarter of the scheme's unit entitlements can require the secretary to convene a general meeting.
• Object to a committee decision. You can't vote at a strata committee meeting, but owners holding more than one-third of the unit entitlements can object in writing to a decision before the committee makes it — which pushes the matter to a general meeting, where every owner gets a say.

When things go wrong

Disputes happen — over noise, pets, by-laws, maintenance, or how a decision was made. The starting point is always to raise it directly, in writing, with the other owner, the committee or the managing agent.

If that doesn't resolve it, NSW Fair Trading provides a mediation service for many strata disputes. Where mediation fails or isn't suitable, the matter can go to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT), which can make binding orders. Owners can also remove a committee member by ordinary resolution at a general meeting, and NCAT can remove members in some circumstances.

The thread running through all of it

Whatever the decision — a levy, a by-law, a big repair — what protects owners years later is the record of how it was made: what was decided, on what information, and by whom. That matters most with maintenance spending, where the quotes and the reasoning tend to live in someone's inbox and vanish when a managing agent or committee changes over. Building that record properly — and keeping it with the building rather than with whoever happens to be managing it this year — is the idea behind StrataTrade.