In this particular episode, I want to talk about the reasons why there are high strata community levies. Not a very pleasant topic, but it's important to understand why strata community levies are high or why would they increase significantly. Strata community levies are raised for three key reasons actually. One is for daily operations. The second is for maintenance or capital expenditure. And the third one is for wants of needs or specialties.

Let's start first with the first one, which is the daily operational items. This includes a big chunk would be your insurance premium, which would cover your building insurance and your public liability insurance. It would also include your strata manager's fees, the daily repair and maintenance expenses. If you have certain contractors that you hire, such as the caretaker or building manager, or just contractors that you appoint from time to time, that would also be included in the daily operation expenses. It's also called administration monies.

The second one is the maintenance levies. This is where it's planned. There's a list of items that would need repair and maintenance in the future. It's like usually these are big projects. So, it's like savings for projects that the strata community would be doing in the future. And the way that the maintenance levy is spent is in accordance with the plan. For example, if there's a big project such as upgrading the common garden, replacement of the lift, usually these huge items. are part of a maintenance levy or a capital expenditure levy.

And the third one is where there are certain circumstances that have not, that needs to be addressed, and funds need to be raised that were not in the original approved budget passed at the last annual general meeting and they're called the once-off for special levies. These special levies could cover, for example, immediate repair and maintenance, if there's legal proceedings on foot, legal costs, if there's experts that need to be hired for certain urgent repairs or issues that need to be addressed, payment for those contractors or professional service providers. Those are the ones of levies.

You should attend the annual general meeting or general meetings or any meetings. Or, if you cannot attend those meetings, appoint a proxy if you want to be heard. You can have your proxy speak on your behalf, or if you just can't send someone and you don't want to attend, read your general meeting notices and your general meeting minutes. That way you know what's going on and you're not just reacting. You're being proactive.

I want to talk to you in this episode about noise control and noisy neighbors in a strata community. When there are allegations of noises caused by neighbors, it is on the complainant to prove that the noise is unreasonable. This means that a once-off noise would be insufficient to get the attention of the strata community. Getting proof means sufficient proof. And there needs to be a demonstration that it's repetitive and it's no longer, or it's hindering you from enjoying your property. So, this means this could include noises that are caused when it's already sleeping hours, especially during working hours, or pass a certain time, if it's the weekends. Do investigate your local council's rules when it comes to what noise is permitted within certain periods of time. And that could be the start of you identifying whether there's been unreasonable noise caused by neighbors and gathering all evidence. And that demonstrates, that means and includes recording times and dates so that you can demonstrate that it's been going on too much and it's no longer reasonable. Once that's put together, your proofs and your timetable of how often has been happening, you can then lodge a complaint with the strata community to trigger the dispute resolution process. This way, your complaint in respect of noise issues or noisy neighbors, is paid attention to by the strata community. And it's important to note that these noisy neighbor issues would usually be paid attention to by the strata community if it's happening within your development. It's another discussion, but there are legal remedies for that available to you if it's another neighbor outside of the development.

What is Strata insurance’s role in dealing with resultant water damage claims? One of the things that I want to point out is that it's absolutely, absolutely important that you first identify if there is an exclusion in your Strata insurance policy about water damage claims. Usually, there is an exclusion if the Strata insurer has identified that there is an ongoing and significant defects in the building where that's identified and there has been significant claims in the history of your development, there is a likelihood that the strata insurer dealing with the resultant water damage claims would be an exclusion, meaning no claim could be made that relates to resultant water damages. However, if such exclusion does not exist, there is an obligation for the strata insurer to deal with and accept a claim for resultant water damages. However, that is on the condition that the source of the water damage is first rectified permanently. And that could be done and that could be proven by the strata community and/or yourself once an expert report confirms in writing that the source of the water damage is now permanently fixed. That's when the strata insurance claim kicks in and it would be the strata insurance claim that would be dealing with and paying for the resultant water damage.