Guides

Written to answer the question a buyer types before they know they need a report. Each guide states what the records show, no recommendation, no forecast, and anything touching the purchase decision is pointed at your solicitor or conveyancer.

• Special levies: what they tell you that the fund balance doesn’t, A capital works balance is a snapshot. The special levy history shows how an owners corporation has actually funded itself. What a levy is, where it’s recorded, and what it means for your lot.
• Reading a ten-year capital works plan, and knowing when to ignore it, There is no target balance for a capital works fund. What matters is a comparison, and whether the plan actually accounts for the works the scheme is facing.
• Cladding: what strata records can and cannot tell you, A records inspection reports what a qualified person has assessed. It cannot substitute for that assessment. What appears in the records, and what doesn’t.
• The five by-laws buyers actually need to read, Pets, renovations, exclusive use, short-term letting and smoke. The five by-laws that actually affect how you live in a lot, and why the exact wording matters.
• Cooling-off and strata reports: the timing trap, The bottleneck is almost never the writing. It’s the authority and the strata company’s schedule. What actually takes the time, and how to plan around it.
• What a strata report costs in NSW, and what’s actually in one, What you pay, what sits underneath the price, and how to tell a thorough report from a thin one.